Teaching Zambia’s Future

Getting access to a good education can be hard in Zambia. About 40 percent of the country is illiterate and many children drop out before reaching secondary school. For Dapson and Marjory Chansa, however, providing a superior education for the children of Zambia is their calling.

They own the Ndinawe Academy in Lusaka, the capital of Zambia. When the school opened in 2003, it catered to a small class of five pupils and one teacher in one classroom. Over the years, as the school enrollment grew, Dapson and Marjory realized they needed more capital to improve the learning environment of their students.

By 2007, the couple received their first FINCA loan of USD 89 to purchase much needed school furniture for the students. With additional FINCA loans, Dapson and Marjory have been able to hire more teachers. Their most recent loan helped to finance a large bus to transport children living far away from the school. With FINCA loans and your support, the school has grown steadily and they have reached over 5,000 students to date!

Today, the Ndinawe Academy is bustling with children eager to learn. The school employs 15 teachers and seven staff members and serves more than 300 children from pre-school to seventh grade. Dapson is proud to reach more children in Zambia every year and believes this is his greatest achievement. “Those that have passed through our school are in excess of 5,000,” Dapson said. “I think we have contributed greatly to the growth and development of education in this country.”

But the couple are not stopping here. They hope one day to buy a new building for the school and would like to tackle Zambia’s dropout problem too by creating a secondary school. Dapson knows that whatever path he takes to solve Zambia’s literacy problem, FINCA will be there to help him in his mission.

“FINCA has been on our side whenever we needed some kind of financial support,” he said.