“Side-by-side, brick-by-brick”: Czech volunteers build school with locals in Zambia
There are many forms of development aid and cooperation, but some come with added value: bringing not just finances and jobs, but know-how and new friendships. A group of Czech volunteers are engaged in one such project in Kashitu, Zambia.
A group of Czech volunteers, mostly university graduates in architecture and construction, are building a secondary school campus for 250 people in the district of Kashitu, a rural area of Zambia.
In cooperation with the Czech NGO Friends of New Renato, which is active in helping to improve the lives of people in rural areas of Zambia, they launched the Kashitu School project, which will not only give generations of children in the district the chance to get a higher education, but is giving jobs to the locals and passing on planning and construction skills that they can put to good use in the future, helping to prevent the depopulation of the area.
What are the challenges of building a school campus thousands of miles from home, in different climatic conditions and with inexperienced staff? How does the building reflect the cultural differences and local needs? How do their construction materials withstand the rainy season? And how does the time spent in Zambia enrich them on a personal level?
Those are just some of the questions I put to Petr Čanda, a graduate from the Faculty of Civil Engineering at the Czech technical University, who initiated the project within his PhD thesis, and his close friend and colleague Michal Přibyl, a graduate of the same faclty, who is the project’s construction manager.
For more info about the project go to: www.kashituschool.org
