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This year the Cosmopolitan Club is donating all proceeds of our Thanksgiving
Dinner to buy books and mail them to a primary school in rural Mazabuka,
Zambia. The school, which has about 200 children in seven different grades,
educates children of farm workers in a commercial farming area. Since
English is the official language of Zambia, all subjects, except those
involving learning of indigenous languages, are taught in English. Similar to schools in the USA, children in Mazabuka study English, arithmetic,
science, social studies, and physical education. For many Mazabuka children,
however, English is the second or third language. Consequently they must
work extra hard to do well in school. Educational requirements are strict.
By fifth grade, they must be able to stand in front of a group and read
from a book and tell a story. To move from seventh to eighth grade and
be able to attend either a vocational school or college preparatory school,
all children must first pass an exam, which is According to Mr. Lishomwa Mulongwe, our Cosmo resident from Zambia,
"For children in Zambia, education is the only way out of poverty.
If they don't get educated, it's practically impossible to get out of
the trap. The government does what it can to promote education, but funds
are low and the number of public school teachers has been reduced. Books
are expensive and limited, and children often have to share." Teachers in Mazabuka care about their students. Many spend extra time after school helping children who are falling behind. They also try to send books home with the children so that they can practice reading at home. To do more of this, teachers need more books. This year's Thanksgiving project endeavors to raise funds to buy and mail as many books as possible to the school. Mr. Mulongwe, who knows the school well is helping with the selection of books to make sure that what we send will be interesting and useful. To lower mailing costs, which can be much higher than the costs of the books themselves, rather than sending the books to Zambia, which is a land-locked country, we will mail the books from Chicago to Lusaka, which is about 150 km from Mazabuka. Mr. Mulongwe has promised to make the trip to the coast to pick them up at the dock and take them to the village. In the United States, Thanksgiving is a time to count our blessings and be grateful for all that we have. At Cosmo, it is also a time to share part of what we have with others who care about education but do not have the abundant resources we often take for granted. This year our Thanksgiving project enables us to send a combined Christmas and New Year's present to a group of children who are striving to learn and become future contributors to their community, country, and world. We thank all of you who have donated money for the project and food for the November 19 dinner, and those who bought tickets for the dinner. Your contributions are going to a worthy cause thanks to a very honorable young man from Zambia. |