Topping Crue Foundation Limited community education

The Challenge we are trying to solve is that of poverty and vulnerability in Libuyu Livingstone  Zambia Africa. and we are using education and empowerment as tools to end poverty and vulnerability in our area of operation. Under this project we are  providing Vulnerable Children's education, which strongly champions provision of free early childhood, primary and secondary education for the most vulnerable and disadvantaged children as well as provision of free back to school scholarships to Teenager mothers ( girls who had dropped out of school because of pregnancy and lacked the means to go back to school so that they can finish their secondary education) but with our support they will finish their secondary education. This project makes hands on contribution to the achievement of SDG goal No. 4 that of achieving inclusive and quality education for all reaffirms the belief that education is the best equalizer and one of the most powerful and proven vehicles for sustainable development. We are also empowering youths with various skills in tailoring, carpentry, plumbing, welding and metal fabrication and baking such that after graduating they are able to use the same skills to generate income to look after themselves. This solution solve the challenge of poverty excellently  such that in the years to come there will be no poverty in our area of operation as most of the children will have been educated and most of the youths will have been empowered with skills of which education and skills they will use to break out of the circles of poverty they are currently living on a  permanent basis thereby ending poverty entirely. 

Our solution is provision of early childhood, primary and secondary educational opportunities to the most vulnerable and disadvantaged children as well as empowering the most vulnerable and disadvantaged youths with survil skills which they can use to break out of the circles of poverty they are currently living in.

Under this project we are running an aerly childhood and primary education at our community center at topping crue foundation limited. These children come to school to learn free of charge, we also provide them with free lunch as most of them come from very poor and disadvantaged families.  We provide them with books, pens pencils rubber sharpeners Toiletries and soap as well as covid-19 safety kit so that they can learn properly. At early childhood and primary level we use face to face mode of teaching where a teacher will stand in front and start teaching the pupils and will always use white chalk to write on the blackboard the lessons being taught to the children. We use the same method to teach the children drama, music and computer lessons.

At lunch time children break for lunch and we use big locally made pots to cook our staple food called Nshima with different kinds of relish to feed the children. We use charcoal as a source of heat to cook the food and we use locally made braziers as cooking equipment. 

At secondary level we are providing free free back to school scholarships to

Teenager mothers ( girls who had dropped out of school because of
pregnancy and lacked the means to go back to school so that they can
finish their secondary education) We are also sponsoring boys from disadvantaged at secondary school so that they can finish their secondary education. The same face to face mode of teaching is used at secondary school to teach our children. We also hire transport  a bus to take the children to and from the secondary schools for some of these children do comes from distant places. We also provide lunch allowances for these children.

As for youths we are providing them with skills training lessons in

in tailoring, carpentry, plumbing, welding and metal fabrication and
baking such that after graduating they are able to use the same skills
to generate income to look after themselves, feed their families and support their children, brothers and sisters to go to school.  Even for skills we use  face to face model of teaching. but here its more practical and we use various equipment when teaching among them, we use, sewing machines, plumbing , metal fabrication, baking pans saving dishes for carter ring courses and plates among other equipment. We also use internet and computers to deliver lessons to our students.

Our solution is serving the most vulnerable and disadvantaged children and youths of Libuyu Livingstone Zambia Africa as well as their parents. Therefore the target group are the residents of Kasiya ward Libuyu Livingstone which has a total population of 9,165 and 40% of this population are poor while 60% of them are extremely poor and highly vulnerable. Where I work so hard towards ending poverty and vulnerability by working closely and in a holistic way with the Libuyu communities of from A section to G section as well as in three villages of Kalaluka, Samson and chileleko of libuyu Livingstone Zambia. This is Zambia’s one of the poorest areas where 60% of the population live in poverty, 40% are highly vulnerable and live in extreme poverty.

Life is tough for these people who most of them live on less than $1 per day. They experience physical pain that comes with too little food and long hours of work. They also have to cope with emotional pain stemming from the daily humiliations of dependency and lack of power. Most of them experience moral pain from being forced to make choices such as whether to pay for a child’s school or pay for hospital bills to save the life of an ill child or wife use the money to feed their children. They lack just about everything which can enable them to live a normal human life; hence the reason why I chose to implement my project in this area. These people endure a lot including psychological effects such as distress at being unable to feed their children, insecurity from not knowing when the next meal will come, and shame at having to go without for the whole day. Therefore these people lack just about everything, lack food, lack employment, lack proper water for drinking, lack empowerment and support but most importantly they lack education and because of lack of education the area they live in is under developed and is poverty stricken to an extent that poverty is passed on from one generation to the other.

Hence this solution will greatly impact these people in that  to solve this challenge of poverty the solution is not to give them food hand outs or money or clothing no but to educate their children and empower their youth children , men and women with skills of which education and skills they will use to break out of poverty permanently therefore this solution is destined to impact theirs lives on a permanent basis . Because an educated society is a developed society. The educated children will also act as role models to inspire other children to go to school and live better lives letter. This way we will fight poverty because many of the children year after year will be enrolled in our primary ,secondary and skills training classes such that in the years to come there will be no children left to educate in the area of our operation which will translate into the majority of the population being educated and once this is done they will be on their way to success as they will use their education to get out of poverty.

Apart from being qualified and having experience in various fields such  as teaching skills training, guidance and cancelling and project  management, we are well positioned to deliver this solution, because to start with i and my team are products of poverty life ourselves. all of us come from around the area of the people we are serving.  Poverty is the root cause of all evil that is why we as a team chose to tackle poverty. Having lived in poverty  we carefully studied and discovered that poverty makes people corrupt, it kills people’s dreams it retards development and progress of any given society. All these situations have strong symbolic value. People in poverty are also more likely to develop non-specific psychopathological manifestations and become mentally ill. Poverty provokes a sort of amnesia: the person forgets who he or she is and merely accepts their dehumanizing conditions. This double composition of poverty explains why paternalistic interventions, focused only on improving material conditions, fail.

 Therefore me and my team we are the ones who can turn this dream into a reality in that  we have lived in abject poverty my self where i lacked almost every basic need. Like in my case I walk to school on bear foot, no shoes with a torn uniform. i walked many kilometers to learn and return home on an empty stomach only to eat one meal and supper was our preference. at secondary school i studied in candle light yet still managed to pass the final examinations. since then i vowed to work hard and take others out of poverty because i fully know what it means to live in poverty. Others cant turn this dream into a reality because they have never suffered and dont know what poverty is but  i and my team we do. Therefore we are passionate about this dream because our personal lives and past experience is connected to its true realization through the execution of this solution.Our idea and solution is the only one which can stand a test of time in solving this challenge of poverty as it does solve it on a permanent basis relieving those who were victims out of it for life.

 We are applying for financial and technical assistance so that we can capture as much vulnerable and disadvantaged people as we can. Apart from that your funding will greatly help us in scaling up my impact in that in the next five we want to empower 5000 poor and most vulnerable and disadvantaged youths and adults, educate 1500 vulnerable children and take back to school 750 poor teenager mothers by the year 2025. Meaning from 9,165 only a small population will remain which we will deal with in the latter years to ensure poverty is completely eradicated in our community and area of operation and once this is done we will then move to other parts of the country where our services will be needed, then I move to other parts of the continent and eventually to other parts of the world in our quest to end poverty.

On the part of technical assistance opportunity is a must for us as it will motivate us as a team to use our talent and influence me to become a complete force in our community, country continent and world in the next five years . Apart from that the knowledge and experience which will be gained will enhance my leadership skills enable me to attain enhanced cultivate collective and individual leadership skills which will help me develop informed and visionary decisions for the next five years. Apart from that this opportunity will provide me with diverse skills, experiences and networks which will allow me achieve my organization’s vision for the next five years. This opportunity will also provide me with an opportunity will help me to identify and champion ways to scale-up, amplify and accelerate the impact of my solution, to make even more of a difference in my Libuyu community, beyond and Globally.

Our solution is innovative in that we teach people how to fish instead of giving them fish. By this i mean that we are not like many organizations in the world and Africa who give money and food hand outs as a solution to solve the challenge of poverty no, as this can be liken to giving them fish. Instead we are educating them and showing them how they can use that education to get out of poverty permanently which can be liken to teaching them how to fish. Because once a person learns how to fish he can be eating fish every day. But if he is given fish once that fish finishes he or she will start suffering again. But our solution is providing education and skills training to the most vulnerable and disadvantaged and showing them how they can use it to get out of poverty on a permanent basis.

  In the next five we want to empower 5000 poor and most vulnerable and disadvantaged youths and adults, educate 1500 vulnerable children and take back to school 750 poor teenager mothers by the year 2025. Meaning from 9,165 only a small population will remain which we will deal with in the latter years to ensure poverty is completely eradicated in our community and area of operation and once this is done we will then move to other parts of the country where our services will be needed, then I move to other parts of the continent and eventually to other parts of the world in our quest to end poverty.  On the part of technical assistance opportunity is a must for us as it will motivate us as a team to use our talent and influence me to become a complete force in our community, country continent and world in the next five years . Apart from that the knowledge and experience which will be gained will enhance my leadership skills enable me to attain enhanced cultivate collective and individual leadership skills which will help me develop informed and visionary decisions for the next five years. Apart from that this opportunity will provide me with diverse skills, experiences and networks which will allow me achieve my organization’s vision for the next five years. This opportunity will also provide me with an opportunity will help me to identify and champion ways to scale-up, amplify and accelerate the impact of my solution, to make even more of a difference in my Libuyu community, beyond and Globally in the next years to come.

 Monitoring and evaluation activities  are carried by participating through the different committees formed. Progress is always closely monitored through regular monthly reports on our provision of community education. Objectives of the project activities  are being monitored as to their impact on the children, on the community including parents, on educators including how many vulnerable children educated , change of mentality towards education by parents, how much impact has free education caused in the area, is the area earmarked for development in the years to come as a result of this project? Involvement of policy markers in the context of provision of education for all leaving no one behind planning, programming and compliance at district, regional and national levels. Periodic progress reports are always submitted highlighting the progress of project implementation, positives, lessons learned and the course corrections needed to address educational problems of vulnerable children. Annual and mid-term reviews are  always organized within a set schedule. All reports monthly mid and annual report are submitted to our donors for further assessment.

Our theory of change is that whether for profit or non-profit organizations must strive to teach people how to fish than giving them fish.  What i mean by this is that they should teach people how to get out of a challenge than solving the challenge for those people.

The core Technology that powers our challenge is the modern day Technology of internet and Laptop. Though most of our lessons are done face to face . we use internet and laptop to communicate with other organizations like we are doing now applying for this challenge program we are using internet and laptop.  So we are using the existing technology of internet and Laptop to solve the challenge of poverty through provision of education and skills training to the most vulnerable and disadvantaged children, youths and parents in Libuyu.

We are educating and empowering through skills the most vulnerable and disadvantaged children, youths and parent using our leaving no one behind policy. This includes disabled, albinos and migrants as long as they are in our area of operation we are attending to them and are able to benefit from our services.

From the time we started to date the lives of these people have signifantly changed. We are seeing the value of our service in that many children who had dropped out especially Teenager mothers are now back in School. Many children whose dreams would have died a sudden death due to poverty is alive as they are in school and are being sponsored to finish their secondary education. There is a significant reduction in children raoming the streets, as well as juvenile theft in our area of operation as most of the children who were doing such vices are now in school. There is a significant reduction in drug and alcohol abuse by children and youths as most of them who were doing such vices are now in school and are also recieving skills training. The empowered youths and adults are today using the skilled gained from us to start their make shift bakeries, welding shops and tailoring shops from which they are able to earn a daily income which they are using to feed their families take their childred to school and improve their lives.

Our plan to become financially sustainable is to venture into income generating activities  which will raise funds for the foundation to continue running its affairs. We have land and would like to invest into agriculture like growing vegetables  like green beans , baby corn, cucumber egg plant  and run a piggery from which we can start processing bacon and pork to sale to local lodges, Guest houses and hotels.  This will create jobs for our youths at the same time it can be generating enough income for the foundation to become financially stable.

We have run a garden before and a chicken run where we were selling broiler chickens  to the local people , we raised a significant amount from the foundation which helped us run the foundation activities. Apart from that the chickens and vegetables were also food for our children so instead of us purchasing vegetables and chicken for our children's consumption at lunch time, we would provide it from this business off course with accountability.