Joined Hands Christian School

We first heard about Joined Hands Christian School in 2025 through Martina and Robin from the Gossner Mission. They visited the school beforehand and put us in touch.

The school is located in the Kampasa community near Lusaka and gives children from low-income families access to education. The nearest school is about 7 kilometres away and hard to reach for many children. That makes this small local school an important opportunity for many families.

It was founded in 2022 by Elina Tembo. Her aim is to give children a safe place to learn and to open up new prospects for adults, especially women, through literacy classes.

Today around 100 children aged 2 to 13 learn there. In addition, about 65 women regularly attend evening classes to learn to read and write.

Thanks to donations, the school building has been renovated and learning conditions for the children improved. At the same time, strategies are being developed together with the community to put the school on a sound economic footing and secure its operation in the long term.

To keep the school running, small school fees are charged. Many families, however, can only pay them irregularly or not at all. The children are taught all the same, because no child should be excluded just because their family cannot afford the fees.

Alongside lessons, the children get a simple lunch. For many of them it is the only hot meal of the day. All of this is made possible by the great personal commitment of Elina Tembo and her team.

Joined Hands Christian School is therefore more than a place of lessons. It creates a place where children learn, eat together and are reliably looked after, and where adults, too, get the chance to learn to read and write.