Having visited Sinde Village and Twabuka Primary School on a trip with Wilderness Safaris Zambia over a year ago, Olivia Kearns felt inspired to get involved and see if she could help. With guidance and support from her family, Olivia took the initiative to use her 16th birthday to raise funds for Sinde Village in Zambia.
In the invitation for her party, Olivia included a background on Sinde Village from what she saw and experienced during her visit, as well as an indication of her preference for donations as opposed to birthday gifts. Over the last couple of months, donations have streamed in, raising over US $3500.00. Very generously, Olivia’s father matched the amount raised, bringing the total to over US $7000.00.
Children in the Wilderness facilitates meetings with communities to establish the greatest needs. In Sinde, the community highlighted the need for a pre-school classroom to be constructed on the same property as Twabuka Primary School. Currently, the pre-school is a dilapidated building located off the main school property. This makes it disjointed and not integrated enough with Twabuka Primary School. We hope that with a newly constructed classroom on the property, the pre-school will be able to be properly managed and more part of the whole school. There will also be a more seamless transition when the students move from the pre-school to Grade 1.
Thanks to this donation, we will be able to make a start on this building. Sinde Village, Twabuka Primary School, and the CITW team is extremely grateful to Olivia Kearns, her family, and her guests for their thoughtfulness and generosity. We look forward to providing further updates as this development progresses.
