By PASSY HAACHIZO –

•MS Ngoma (holding a book) and her daughter Esnart reading out notes to pupils.

IN the last 10 years, Faneless Ngoma, 64, has depended on an unroofed building in Kanyama Township in Lusaka to provide education to 231 children.
The school, called Luntha Orphanage Community School (LOVCS), runs from Grade One to Six, and is expected to go up to Grade 7 next year.
Relying only on meagre resources, Ms Ngoma has struggled to improve the school since 2005 and nothing much has been done due to lack of support.
Ms Ngoma, who only got educated up to Grade four, launched her community school out of her passionate desire to uplift the standard of lives of childrencoming from underprivileged households in Kanyama.
The school caters for orphaned children who come from vulnerable families.
“I went to school only up to Grade Four due to the financial challenges I faced after my father died in 1970. I then decided to drop out of school,” Ms Ngoma said.
Although she failed to get any meaningful education herself, Ms Ngoma is determined to do everything she can to give vulnerable children a chance of getting an education that she never had.
Having not gone far in her education, Ms Ngoma did a course in tailoring and design when she was already an adult.
But the burning desire to see children educated in the community made her start teaching children from the veranda of her house.
Within a short time, the number of children grew to 106. But even then, she had no-one to help her.
The number of children later increased to 231, forcing Ms Ngoma to move the school from her house to an incomplete building.
The building had no floor and no room to protect the children from rain, heat or the cold.
She registered the school as an orphanage to help the children.
Ms Ngoma said she built the incomplete house she works from on the only piece of land she had.
She used her own money to set up the school.
But her efforts have not been in vain. The rise in the number of pupils attracted the interest of Government, through the ministry of General Education, which now wants to put the school on a list of community schools that receive annual grants meant to improve teaching materials for the children.
Ms Ngoma managed to register her school in 2008, and that gave her more impetus to turn the school into an examination centre that could cater for children from low-income families in Kanyama Township.
She said the pace at which children were now enrolling at her school spoke volumes about the plight of the vulnerable children in the township.
She also feels encouraged by parents and guardians who readily take orphaned children to her school.
Ms Ngoma was born to Ruth and Philip Jere, the late Chief Madzimawe of Eastern Province.
She is one of the seven surviving children of the late traditional leader. She was the first born child in the family.
Shortly after she dropped out of school, she decided to get married and In 1973, she relocated to Kanyama Township in Lusaka.
Her ex-husband worked for Lusaka City Council (LCC). In 1980, she was trained in tailoring and design before a priest at St Joseph Parish in Kanyama inspired her to venture into community service.
In 2005, Ms Ngoma opened her school and named it Luntha. Her idea of opening the school was to help the poor, mostly orphaned street children, by giving them a chance to attend school.
Her desire is to expand her school, with the support of the business community and well-wishers.
But she has had challenges with fraudsters who use her name and school to collect money which they never give to her.
“About three people have come, got my profile and used it to steal money from some organisations.
Others in the name of wanting to adopt the school have ended up stealing from me, a person who is only
trying to help the less privileged in the community,” she lamented.
Naomi Zulu, 65, who helps Ms Ngoma look after the school resources, is one of the parents who sent her grandchildren to LOVCS when it just opened.
“Had it not been for the school, I don’t think my grandchildren, Lomano and Margaret Phiri, would have changed but because of this school, they have learnt to be responsible children,” she said.
According to Ms Zulu, her grandchildren, who are 13, were wayward children who got transformed into responsible youngsters after they started attending school.
Kelvin Mofya is another parent who has had all his three children enrolled at Ms Ngoma’s school.
“I am also the chairperson for the school and I can tell you that all my three children have passed through LOVCS.
“One is now going into Grade 10, another is in Grade Nine and the third will be sitting for
her Grade Seven examinations next year,” Mr Mofya said.
He said it was his dream to see LOVCS get transformed into a good school in future so that more underprivileged families can have their children educated.
The school has won support from the Farming Investors Group (FIG) which has offered to support the staff and the pupils.
FIG executive director Boniface Mulaishio said the organisation was ready to partner with Ms Ngoma in supplementing Government’s efforts in uplifting the lives of vulnerable children in Kanyama.
“We are going to see how we can support this school as it continues to help the poor in the community,” Mr Mulaishio said.
It is hoped that other business houses and well-wishers will take a leaf from FIG by appreciating the work that Ms Ngoma has started in educating children who come from families with no means to support them.
Whereas Government continues to build more schools and employ more teachers to get children educated, it needs concerted efforts of individuals to lessen the burden by using initiatives that can help improve the local communities.
If more people who failed to get education can be as passionate about getting children educated as Ms Ngoma, Zambia would indeed be respected as a country which values education for its youthful citizenry regardless of their social status.