Thanks to St.Luke’s Innovative Resources

Mama Vernon is definitely the Sooka Community's unofficial ambassador, here she tells about her encounter with St Luke's Innovative Resources...

I have been given some St.Luke’s Innovative Resources, strength cards that are used in councelling situations or as conversation starters. Russell Deal (Social Worker) who has actually designs most of the sets of cards and has written many of their children’s books and other resources, was very interested in hearing about Sooka Community School and has very generously donated the cards. I will show the teachers how to use them and leave them at the school. I also have one set I think will be suitable for the OVC Councelling centre in Mwandi.

Russell and I had a car trip together to attend a Forum. Russell was our guest speaker and demonstrated the use of the cards to a large attendance of professionals working in the Mental Health field. 

Russell also loves Africa and has travelled to many countries teaching the usefulness of the resources. Once I started talking about Zambia… there was no stopping me and he enjoyed hearing the stories.
On my return, St.Luke’s Innovative Resources, based in Bendigo, Victoria (about 1700km south of Tamworth, NSW) has asked me to write an article about the school for their newsletter.
Thank you, St.Luke’s for your very generous donation to the Sooka community.

St. Luke's Innovative Resources Cards

In December 2013, I was in Sydney for work and three of us went down a day early, to spend some non-work related time in the beautiful city.

Whilst we were there we attended the Yoko Ono exhibition at the Museum of Contemporary Art and there were many ‘hands on’ things to do. One table had broken crockery, glue, sticky tape and string and you were encouraged to make an item and place it on a shelf (which then became part of Yoko’s exhibition). As is was nearing Christmas, and there were two broken pieces of a plate that looked to me like angels wings, I created a rustic angel, all the time thinking of ‘the Angels of Sooka’, past and present. My friend sent this photo today of my completed angel. I wonder if Yoko Ono ever saw it??

Joyce with 'Sooka Angel' at the Museum of Contemporary Art, Sydney

What a way to travel home from work! We were tourists in our state capital, Sydney

Sooka Community UCZ Pre-School

Mama Vernon is here to update us on the developments in the Sooka Community, Thank you Joyce...

I feel as if my dream has come true for the small children of this Sooka region. As a retired Pre-School teacher, the commencement of a Pre-School has been a long-term goal of mine.

What an exciting day it must have been for the Sooka Community, with their first ever Pre-School day on 20th January 2014. Twenty children were enrolled with a voluntary teacher. They are currently using the Sooka United Church for temporary premises until a Pre-School is built.

Sooka UCZ and temporary Pre-School

The first classroom at Sooka Community School was intended for a Pre-School but it took off as a school from Grade 1 and the rest is history. Having had two Grade 7’s graduate, in 2012 and 2013. This school that commenced in 2007 with 35 students now has 154. This would be the envy of most small Australian bush schools, as we need 30 children to retain a second teacher and as our birth rate is so low, this can be difficult.

It would be hard for Westerners to understand that the children in the Sooka region had no opportunity to attend any formalised play get-togethers (other than more recently, Sunday School) until they went to school at age 7 years. There was no Playgroup, Day Care, or Pre-School. 
The families do not own cars, there is no bus, so no way for the children to get to the nearest Pre-School which is a 7km walk to Mwandi, then 7kms home.

A dear friend who is studying to be a Pre-School teacher (mature age student, as I was) asked me “How do you build a Pre-School in another country and culture?” A very good question…… when the book comes out there will be a chapter on just that!
It must come from the community and they must ‘own’ it. They are the ones who will be responsible for the day-to-day running and I will be on the fringes helping where I can. 
It must be sustainable (no ongoing fee sponsorship or teachers wages), I will not be on this earth forever (unfortunately) and don’t have the backing of a big organization.
It must be inclusive of all children and I will certainly be encouraging as much local input as possible, with as many locally made items as possible.

We had our first planning meeting about the Pre-School in May 2013, after the dental team had come back to Australia. The meeting was held after church one Sunday with myself, Francis (long time teacher at the school), the local pastor and a parish representative.

The UCZ and community had previously discussed a Pre-School, as the Zambian Government expect children to attend Pre-School before commencing school, however, there was to be no funding made available to actually build, equip or staff a Pre-School. 

At the meeting I discussed the possibility of using the Sooka UCZ building to start the Pre-School off, while some fundraising was taking place in Australia to build a suitable classroom. Many Pre-Schools in Australia began in church halls and to this day one of the leading Pre-Schools in Tamworth still operates from a church hall. The staff packs all equipment away on Friday afternoon and replacing in the hall on Monday morning. Not ideal but possible. 

Another reason for the United Church of Zambia to be involved, was that they own a plot of land at Sooka, near Shackleton’s Lodge, where as, if the Pre-School was built near the school, that would be Zambian Government land. The community felt strongly that this should be a ‘Community Pre-School’. My one concern was that the Pre-School should be open to every child of any faith (or no faith) and was assured this was the case, it would be there for the whole community. There will be a fee, which of course some families may find hard to find but I don’t feel sponsorship is an option, as this is a community initiative and responsibility. When we make sacrifices for our children, it is something we can look back on with pride.

Keith Waddell (Pastor and High School teacher in Mwandi), Reverend Wezi Msalu Manda (UCZ, Mwandi Consistory chairperson) and I have had many emails back and forth to get the Pre-School underway.  Keith organised for a cupboard to be built to hold the Pre-School equipment in the storeroom at the back of the church at Sooka. This was my first request, so that there would be a safe and clean place to store the equipment that I started posting for the Pre-School. Thank you Keith for organising that and delivering it up to Sooka.

Speaking of posting, I have sent ten boxes to the Pre-School and the latest report was that four had arrived safely.
It took some time to get an emailed plan of the proposed Pre-School building. That has now been approved and the quote from a local builder has been accepted. 
Funds have been transferred from Australia to start the foundations for the Pre-School. 
I will be over at Shackleton’s Lodge in May and am very hopeful that the building of Pre-School will have commenced by then.

During my time at Shackleton’s Lodge in May/June I plan to spend time helping out at both Sooka Community UCZ Pre-School and Sooka Community School and of course a spot of Tiger fishing!
I will be interested in seeing the new school buildings that the Zambian Government is building. There are to be three new classrooms and a new teacher’s house. The School has certainly outgrown the two classrooms and one African style (mud) classroom.