UNICEF sends ‘schools-in-a-box’ to Zambia’s flood-hit regions
The United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) has dispatched 58 “schools-in-a-box” to flood-hit areas of Zambia to help pupils whose families have had to flee their homes because of rising waters or whose school buildings have been damaged or destroyed.
The United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) has dispatched 58 “schools-in-a-box” to flood-hit areas of Zambia to help pupils whose families have had to flee their homes because of rising waters or whose school buildings have been damaged or destroyed.
Each school-in-a-box, which contains enough supplies for 100 children, will be distributed to community and Government schools in Southern, Lusaka and Western provinces, among the regions hardest hit by the recent flooding. They have been sent from the agency’s supply division in Copenhagen, Denmark.
Pawan Kucita, chief of UNICEF Zambia’s education section, said “the kits are designed to provide support for teachers and children and to ensure a sense of normalcy remains despite the difficult circumstances that tragedies such as floods can bring.”
The kits, designed for students in grade one to nine, contain exercise books, student slates, an inflatable globe, a student register, crayons, pencils, pencil sharpeners, ballpoint pens, felt-tip pens, erasers, chalkboards, chalk and chalk duster, scissors, tape, a clock, flipchart markers, a compass, coloured wooden cubes, educational posters, book bags, rulers and a metal box for transport and storage.
UNICEF Zambia is already providing $139,000 in emergency supplies to the country’s Ministry of Education, and they include 36 large tents and 40 recreation kits, which contain volleyballs, netballs, footballs, nets and whistles.
About 400,000 people are estimated to have been affected by this season’s flooding in Zambia, while up to 36,000 have been displaced and almost 3,500 homes and 44 schools have collapsed because of the prolonged heavy rainfall.