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100% Nayamba Campaign – A year in reflection

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January 03, 2017

What an amazing year 2016 turned out to be on so many fronts. Not all for the better, most people would agree but one area where few could disagree relates to the transformation that has taken place at Nayamba School.

When the Trustees set the target a year ago to raise enough money in one year to enable the school to be 100% complete, it wasn’t without a huge amount of trepidation about what lay ahead and how we could even begin to raise so much money.

The New Year’s Eve party not only heralded the end of 2016, it also signalled the end of the 100% campaign, exactly one year after it was launched. It was an opportunity for all involved to relax and celebrate the blood, sweat and tears that have been necessary at times to achieve the task in hand. The range of activities that have supported the campaign have been varied;

·       Cinema days

·       Charity bike ride

·       Dinner/Auction (This raised over £20k on the night!)

·       Family fun run

·       Wine tasting evening

·       Supermarket collections

·       BBQ

·       100 Heroes. This required volunteer children in Devon schools to pledge to raise a minimum of £50 each. The children did a huge range of activities from cake stalls to cutting their hair off and managed to raise enough money in total to pay for a classroom which will be named The Devon Children's Classroom. A plaque showing the names of all the children who were part of the fundraising effort will be put up in the classroom shortly.

In addition to the activities, two other major donors contributed greatly to the target. First of all, an anonymous donor pledged up to £20,000 on a matched funding basis up until the summer. This meant that they would donate £1 for every £1 donated by the public. With a huge amount of effort, we were able to raise more than £20k in the first six months so we were able to secure the whole £20k of matched funding. Several other donors were very generous in their giving at that time to help us reach this milestone.

Secondly, we were hugely grateful to The Estelle Trust for providing £30k of grant funding to the campaign. The Estelle Trust have been supporting Nayamba for a number of years in different ways and were keen to work alongside The Nayamba Trust to achieve the ambitious targets set. They have also been able to help in practical ways through the staff they have working in Zambia.

So what has been achieved? To explain this, it is necessary to consider what the school consisted of at the beginning of the year and how it operated.

·       A single block building consisting of 3 classrooms and a tiny office.

·       7 year groups each only having half a day of teaching

·       3 teachers teaching all 7 grades

The school now has;

·       an additional classroom block consisting of an extra 6 classrooms

·       A preschool has been started

·       Year 8 has been added to extend the length of education

·       All 8 grades each have their own teacher

·       Year 4 and above now receive a full day of teaching

·       Additional houses have been built to house the additional teachers

·       The school has been connected to mains electricity (teachers houses about to be)

·       A new bore hole has been drilled to provide on-site water. A solar pump has just been installed

·       A food hut has been built so that the daily porridge meal can be cooked indoors during the rainy season and the grain stored safely

This work has all been funded from the 100% Campaign which, over the last year has reached an incredible £86,400. The last major piece of infrastructure to be built is a toilet block for the boys and another for the girls. This will consist of a number of toilet holes and critically, hand washing facilities that are not currently available and pose a significant health risk. We hope that we will be able to raise the last £3k and that the building work will be finished in the next few months.

When we started the year, The Nayamba Trust didn’t even exist as a registered charity (the registration process completed in March) and as we end the year, the main infrastructure of Nayamba is nearly complete. So much has been achieved in such a short period of time thanks to the huge generosity shown by so many donors.

It is a good and satisfying thing to be able to sit back and take pleasure in all that has been accomplished at Nayamba and our hope is that anyone reading this report who has played a part (no matter how big or small) will join us in feeling the satisfaction that comes from providing a future to children where little existed previously.

We must not be complacent however, as there is still a big ongoing task ahead of us. We are acutely conscious that as a result of the school expansion, the ongoing running costs of the school have grown to about £30,000 a year with over 300 children now in attendance and receiving a hot meal every day (for some of them, the main source of nutrition they have in a day).

Whilst there will be a big reduction in capital fundraising in 2017, we need to source many more donors willing to commit to a monthly sponsorship to support the school. We continue to be very proud of our 100% model which means that every single penny of money donated to the school reaches the school without any deductions. We very much hope that with the cost of educating and feeding a child at Nayamba costing about 25pence per day, many more people will get involved.  Then, no matter what happens to us all in 2017, they will at least be able to say they did their best to make the world a better place for a group of children in Zambia.

Thank you to all of our many supporters for all of your help in 2016. We wish you all a healthy and peaceful 2017.

The Nayamba Trust Trustees (in alphabetical order)

James Brookes, Sadie Clark, Tim Pestridge, Vanessa Pestridge, Jon Petherick, Michaela Petherick, Karen Pike, Richard Pike