Making dreams come true: renovating the Chipembi girls school so that girls can grow into strong women and live self-determined lives.

Chipembi Girls Secondary School is a rural boarding school founded in 1926 and the first school for girls from poor families in Zambia. It is located in Chisamba District and is surrounded mostly by smallholder farmers and small traders. The school was founded by the Methodist Church and is run today by the United Church of Zambia (UCZ).

Chipembi is a grant-aided boarding school, which means it receives very little state funding compared with public schools (The difference between grant-aided boarding schools and public schools in Zambia lies in ownership and funding. Grant-aided boarding schools are run by private or church organisations and are only partly supported by the state, while public schools are fully funded and administered by the state. The terms are a little confusing.). The school has 722 pupils and 37 teachers, all of them working full time. There are four classes in grades 8 and 9, while grades 10 to 12 have three classes each.

The school promotes sustainable agriculture and climate justice.

Its mission is to provide a holistic education for girls through innovative teaching methods. That vision cannot be realised if the surroundings do not support it, which is why the school infrastructure urgently needs improvement.

2. The problem

Chipembi faces a number of challenges, among them insufficient funding to maintain the school infrastructure and keep day-to-day operations running. The girls pay only small school fees, which are used for food, cleaning materials and teaching materials.

The school has tried to mobilise resources by setting up an agricultural production unit running several farming operations (maize and other vegetables, livestock, poultry, fruit). This contributes to the girls nutrition and wellbeing and helps keep catering costs down. The girls also learn good animal husbandry and other farming skills. Because of budget constraints, however, no renovation work has been possible on the school buildings for a long time, and they have fallen into disrepair.

The school management has therefore identified the following projects as priorities that need to be tackled urgently.

2025

✅  44 bunk beds and 88 mattresses
✅  Sanitary facilities renewed
🔜  Dining hall renovation (in progress)
❗️ Assembly hall renovation