Leonard Ncube in Victoria Falls
AS the country celebrated the 42nd Independence Day last Monday, a group of former Chinotimba Primary School students who are based in the United Kingdom chose to celebrate the day by donating learning material worth close to $300 000 to the school they attended in the 1980s in Victoria Falls.
The donation comprised new competence-based curriculum Grade Seven Mathematics, Agriculture, English and Information and Technology textbooks as well as teachers’ books. The group calls itself “The Class of 80s” and invited some of the teachers who taught them between 1980 and 1986 to witness the donation.
The former students pursued different professions ranging from tour operators to professional tour guide, human resources management, teaching, nursing and technicians among others and also used the occasion as a career guidance session.
The former students mobilised each other and started a go-fund initiative to mobilise funds which eventually bought the books.
Ms Lindani Sibanda, a human resources manager based in UK and is the team leader said they started a reunion drive in July 2020 and that culminated in the donation with the aim of giving back to the community they grew up in.
“We started Grade One in 1980 at Chinotimba Primary School and we wanted to do a reunion. So we formed a WhatsApp group on 16 July 2020 when we started talking and connected more than 40 former students who settled in different parts of the world. We wanted to meet in December 2020 and in 2021 but we failed because of Covid-19.
Chinotimba Primary School
When we finally met this year we also invited teachers who taught us from 1980 to 1986 and unfortunately only five are still surviving. All of us as former students will be turning 50 next year,” said Ms Sibanda.
The reunion resulted in the plan to donate to the school. Ms Sibanda said they approached their former school and enquired about its challenges and text books were a priority.
“As we started mobilising we opened a Go Fund Me page where mostly former students donated. We are hoping to donate books every year to the school and we also plan to start a foundation for that purpose and it will be in place soon so we help the school complete all its projects. We are not looking back, this is just the beginning.
These books are worth $262 312, we know they are not enough but they will cushion our learners,” she said.
Chinotimba Primary deputy head Mr Victor Sibanda thanked the former students for the gesture.
School Development Committee chair Mr Bhekimpilo Tshongwe said the donation came at the right time to boost Grade Seven classes that have inadequate reading and learning materials.
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