OTLC NEWS:

2024

November 2023 brought several important changes to the OTLC NGO in Switzerland. We said a fond farewell to our secretary, Angela McMillan. Angela’s dedication extended beyond her role as secretary; she played a pivotal part in fundraising and, in 2016, led a group of students from Kumon Leysin Academy of Switzerland (KLAS) on a 10-day visit to OTLC. Together, they worked tirelessly to build a block of three new classrooms, and we are immensely grateful for her contributions.

We are thrilled to welcome Stacey Pilkington as our new Secretary. With many years of experience in accounting and a strong commitment to OTLC’s mission, Stacey has been a steadfast supporter of our fundraising efforts, and we are excited about her contributions to our team.

We also welcome Regina Sertschnigg as our new Member at Large. Regina brings a powerful passion for fundraising and a deep commitment to the children of OTLC. Having visited the school three times, she has helped elevate our sports program as a professional tennis coach, providing tennis rackets and much-needed sports equipment to enrich our students’ lives.

Additionally, Graydon Hazenberg has taken on the role of Vice President. Graydon’s long-standing support and invaluable assistance with fundraising have been instrumental to OTLC’s growth, and we are grateful to have him step into this new leadership role.

A heartfelt thank you to Angela, Stacey, Regina, and Graydon for their dedication and hard work in helping OTLC provide quality education and support to Zambia’s most vulnerable children. Together, we look forward to making an even greater impact in the years to come.

2021

2021 was a challenging year for OTLC, with covid-19 outbreaks resulting in school being closed several times during the school year, disrupting students’ learning. Our dedicated school staff, however, rose to the challenges with professionalism and determination, ensuring that the school resumed with renewed energy after every shutdown. We added Grade 7 for the first time, and in November our first batch of student sat for the national Grade 7 leaving examinations; we are anxiously awaiting their results!

We also had two new classrooms constructed during the year by modifying and adding to existing buildings; this allowed us to have space for the grade 7 class and, for 2022, the new grade 8 class.

We had a visit from Bryce Bohne, an international educator, in April; as always it was interesting for staff and students to interact with educators from overseas, comparing ideas and techniques for teaching.

2020

OTLC added a grade 6 class this year, continuing the process of expanding the school by one grade per year, allowing our oldest cohort of students to continue at the school. To help facilitate future growth, OTLC acquired a second new plot of land next to the original school plot; this should allow several new classrooms to be constructed over the coming years.

2019

In 2019 OTLC was able to secure a plot of land adjacent to the school to allow it to expand in the future, as the original parcel of land has now been fairly completely built up.

We were fortunate to have Odette Chesterman and Maison Smith come to OTLC as volunteers for six weeks and two months, respectively. Maison used her architectural skills to help design possible new buildings for the school. Odette employed her knowledge of permaculture to help teach students about composting and sustainable gardening, aided by a digital microscope which allowed students to see the intricate tiny life permeating the soil. They both helped construct new composting enclosures, and Odette drafted a plan for future use of the school grounds for growing food and cash crops and creating a shaded, welcoming outdoor environment.

2018

We received a big surprise donation of CAN$400 from Miles McDonnell Collegiate Student Council in Winnipeg, Canada. We have a very tight budget barely making ends meet this year. The funds have been used to help pay the remainder of the teacher training program that two of our very hard working teachers are enrolled in. This quality teacher education is really important for our school as it helps equip our staff with the necessary tools to deliver an effective educational program! Our teachers are pivotal in our success. They will both complete their diploma this year. HUGE THANKS MMC !!!!It was wonderful to welcome several volunteers this May for two weeks.

Here is a brief introduction about the volunteers. Dwight is a Math and Physics teacher and ex VP plus multitalented builder, his wife Monique, is teacher of preschool teachers (both Canadians), Lindsay is a primary maths teacher and ex school principal, his wife Sharon is also a teacher. Candice is a teacher and arts and crafts person and her husband Wayne, is a media journalist. So with this incredible bag of talents we were truly in for a whirlwind of activity at the school.

Here is what they got up to:

Chicken Farm

  1. Dwight and Lindsay worked hard on insulating the chicken house. They sponsored the purchase of several sheets of hard plywood and screws to use to line the ceiling, which has been a very hot tin roof up until now. After some thought about insulation we decided to recycle the white chicken food sacks, filling them with other shredded sacks, stitching them together and then overlapping them inside the new roof lining leaving a gap between these and the tin roof. As we have a unidirectional angled roof they also drilled holes on the high and low ends of the roof to allow hot air to move above the sacks and out the high end of the roof, drawing cooler air in behind it. It has made a huge difference in keeping the chickens cool. All the workers were involved in the stitching of the sacks together. This will hopefully take care of the chickens keeping cool!
  2. Our second problem to keep our chickens happy is that it has been too cold in the winter for them. I have been thinking about this problem for many months. We needed a very cost effective method of warming the chicken house that was not dependant on electricity, which is often intermittent. I bought 22 baked clay bricks (I think for about $3), I was then donated one clay pot and a sheet of metal, so with these I was able to construct a small heat storage fireplace that we can add hot embers to with the idea that these hot embers will heat up the bricks and slowly release this trapped heat over several hours to keep the chicken house warm enough for all our chickens. We also improved the wiring so that an infrared heat lamp can also be used for them.
  3. The chicken farm made a profit this year of 2,000 kwa (around US$150), not much I know, but it all helps. This money has been directed towards the new toilets. Toilets are kind of an issue for us, as we expand so must the number of toilets. This time the idea is that they will be flushing… it seems our old latrines are in fact full 🙁 . The flushing into septic tanks does mean that we will be able to have them emptied as needed, according to Judy who is rapidly becoming an expert. In addition our volunteers also contributed additional funds so the toilets could be completed.

Tailoring

  1. Candice spent most of her time at the school working with our tailor Triness on the development of new products to sell at Olga’s Restaurant, and other tourist outlets. So far the tailoring business is marginally profitable. This is probably due to pricing, quality and product design. Hopefully with the team and Candice’s guidance and clever ideas the tailoring business will show more of a profit next year.
  2. It is also good to note that the tailoring unit sews all the uniforms for our fully sponsored children. We have 50 children that do not pay fees and are provided with uniforms.
  3. Le Patino hotel (where our team stayed) manager also visited up bringing a large sack of cornmeal for the children. She enjoyed her visit so much, that sh has opened a little mini-market in her hotel to sell our products. Furthermore, they also bought some of our products for their use at the hotel. It is very important for us to build local community support and awareness like this.

  4. Big 5 visit

    On Wednesday our volunteers sponsored a grade 4 trip (about 25 children were able to make it) out to the Big 5 cat conservation centre about 5 kms outside of Livingstone. An excursion is a rare treat for our children. This particular trip is a favourite of mine as I love to see the children’s reactions to the seeing Lions, Cheetahs and Caracal for the first time. They also receive wonderful instruction from the rangers who explain in detail about the importance of wild cat and animal conservation. I had received an email prior to the trip that we would now have to pay 10 kwa per child and 50 kwa per adult (4 adults permitted for free) this would have cost us about 750kwa (of course all the staff love to come on this trip and I didn’t want to leave any of them behind). However, I talked with the park supervisors and guides when we arrived and they permitted our group in for free. This meant we had some money left over in our volunteers budget, with this we bought a very strong steel framed black bicycle, with a welded carrier made of steel rebar for 600kwa. This will be used to pick up large sacks of chicken food, saving us the delivery charge of 30 kwa per trip. Also the bicycle will be very useful for numerous other activities, such as getting into town for business etc. This is a real boon for us! The kids and adults all had a great visit and polished off a couple of giant bags of Swedish sausages and potatoes. The adults and kids loved them.

  5. Sharon and Monique spent considerable working with the teachers in the classroom with all our grades and also helping with the development of our gift and craft store.
  6. MEDIA: One of the areas where we also need lots of improvement is our media image and the need to constantly update our news and get the message out to everyone about what we are doing. So we were very thankful to have Wayne, a professional photographer and journalist on board for 2 weeks. He spent the majority of his time on producing excellent video footage and photographic images and so I am looking forward to receiving the finished and edited products next month and sharing these with you all. Due to the fact he was often times behind the camera I have very few photos of him.

I think what impressed me most (apart from all the amazing talent) about this group was their irrepressible enthusiasm and positivity, which was completely infectious and truly made for lots of laughter, fun times and great memories. We were very blessed to have this team work with us and it gave everyone a huge boost in morale. Thank you so much.