Land Development
We are in the final stages of purchasing land! We are aiming to build a community centre for all our programs and projects, including classrooms to provide a safe learning environment for our students. Besides our current students, this community centre will also support the surrounding (rural) communities with programs like school holiday camps, women empowerment groups, mental health counselling and gardening initiatives.
Scroll down to read more about our Future Plans
Our Goal
Join us on an exciting journey as we transform our land through five carefully planned stages of development. In Stage 1, our focus is on creating a borehole and establishing protective fencing around the land. Following this, we'll bring our gardens to life and set up a temporary structure to accommodate a caretaker on-site. Every contribution made will directly support the execution of our Stage 1 Plan which comes to a total of $13,000, propelling us forward in our land development initiative. Become a vital part of this journey by making a donation today!
Stage 1 Steps:
Build corner pillars
Build a borehole/well
Build a water tower
Build a caretaker house/store room
Build slab for block machine
Future Plans
In order to achieve our goals and carry out our programs we intend to purchase property and build the following structures:
Administration Building: The administration building would consist of three offices, two storerooms, and a staff meeting room.
Education Building: The education building would consist of two adjoining classroom blocks. Each classroom block would consist of four classrooms, two storerooms, and an office. One classroom block would be used for our school’s reception through grade three classes and the second classroom block would be used for extra lessons.
Health Building: The health building would adjoin to the office building and consist of two meeting rooms, two storerooms, a project room for our Women’s Sewing Initiative, a Medical Health Room, and an office.
Auditorium Building: The Auditorium Building would be a large hall where we can host Informational Community Workshops, Festive Celebrations, and large meetings.
Kitchen Block: The kitchen block would consist of a storeroom and cooking area. Ideally it would have two large counters that are accessible from the inside and the outside of the kitchen so that students can walk up to the counter and receive their meals.
Outdoor Dining Pavilions: We would have two outdoor dining pavilion blocks. These would consist of a cement slab floor and a thatch roof held up by wooden poles with tables and benches for the students to sit at to eat.
Two Ablution Blocks: We would have two ablutions blocks, one near the education building and the other near the office building. These would have toilets and showers.
Garden: We would have two gardens, one where we can teach our students how to garden and another where we can teach the women in our FEBG how to garden.
Playground: Ideally, we would have a small playground for the students in our school and who come to extra lesson to use.
Sports Field: We want to have a sports field where the students can play football and where we can host activities for our holiday camps.
FHCI Pre & Primary School
In order to provide education to students who have learning challenges, our plan is to have a small school for students in reception through grade three. While we will teach the core subjects, our main focus will be teaching reading, phonics, spelling, and math. Our goal for the students is that by the time they grade three, they will be able to read, write, and speak English fluently enough to succeed in a Zambian school. Learning instruction will primarily be in English, except for when the students have Chitonga class. During Chitonga class the instruction will take place in Chitonga.
Future Education Programs
Term Holiday Camps
We want to offer a variety of fun extracurricular activities for the students to attend during their term holidays (from mid April to mid May and from mid August to mid September). The activities we can offer are endless. We could do a music camp, drama camp, cultural camp, dancing camp, sports camp, art camp etc. The point of these camps is to give the children a place where they can come to have fun and get out of the house during their holiday if they so wish. These camps will keep the children busy and give them something productive and exciting to do with their time. Providing these camps will hopefully keep the students who live in abusive homes, out of their abusive situations as much as possible and keep the students from engaging in alcohol use and petty crime.
Future Nutrition Programs
Kitchen and Dining Area
In order to ensure our students, and participants in our other programs, are receiving the nourishment they need, we need to have a kitchen and a place for the students to eat on our property. The students who attend our school, as well as our students in extra lessons and those participating in our other programs will have access to either one or two meals a day. We will serve porridge in the morning and Nshima with veg or beans in the afternoon. We will also serve food when we host community workshops and during the Term Holiday Camps.
Garden Initiative
In order to teach the students and community members how to garden, we will have a garden on our property. We will also set up gardens at our external extra lesson centers. We can also possibly help provide students and families who would like to cultivate gardens at their homes with seeds.
Future Health Programs
On-Site Medical Evaluations
Ideally, we would have a doctor or nurse who would be employed by us on a part time basis, to come to our location and address general health concerns. For instance, if any of the students at our school, or in our sponsorship program, were sick, or if any of their family members were sick and could not afford to go to the clinic, they could go to our Medical Office to see our doctor. We would have one room in the Health Building on our property that would be utilized by a nurse or doctor and be equipped with basic medical necessities. The nurse or doctor could do a basic medial assessment of the pupil and either address their medical issues there and then, or refer them to a local clinic, or in severe cases, Batoka Hospital, where their extenuating medical issues would be further addressed.
Mental Health Counseling Center
Anyone within the FHCI community who would like counseling, as well as students who have been referred by an FHCI staff member, will be able to receive counseling at our counseling center. We will provide individual counseling as well as family counseling. In addition, we will have support groups that meet on a weekly, bimonthly, or monthly basis, for survivors of abuse and domestic violence, for those who have lost a loved one, for those healing from trauma or suffering from PTSD, as well as support groups for people suffering from depression and addiction. We will also have a support group for young mothers (and mothers to be). This program will provide expecting mothers with physical and prenatal health services as well as mental health services. We will also provide women in this program with classes on childrearing, postpartum depression, and other informational topics that relate to pregnancy and motherhood.
Female Empowerment Business Group
In our Female Empowerment Business Group sessions, females will learn about business and professional skills, financial security, how to start a small business, how to invest and manage money, etc. Women in this group will have the opportunity to be selected to participate in FHCI’s Women’s Sewing Initiative, as well as FHCI’s Women’s Market Initiative. Women who are accepted into our Women’s Sewing Initiative will be taught how to sew, and be paid by us to make uniforms for our students, help them find potential clients as well as venues to sell their products and will be taught how to grow and sell vegetables and fruits in the market. We will buy their veggies and fruits for our feeding program and help them find a market to sell their veggies and fruits in. Unemployed women who are part of our Female Empowerment Group who unable to support themselves, or their families, can apply to join our Women’s Sewing Initiative or our Women’s Market Initiative.