Thursday 28th November saw Cranleigh School recognising how many people in the world live below the poverty line, below $1 a day. In particular, we were raising awareness for our sister school, ‘Kawama Community School’ in the copperbelt region of Zambia, where many of the families sending their children to the school are often unable to feed themselves more than once a day. Being conscious of this, one of the schemes that our partner charity ‘Beyond Ourselves’ has introduced at Kawama is a daily feeding programme for the school children, and some of the monthly £12.50 for child sponsorship goes towards the provision of this feeding programme.
Like last year, on this ‘Live Below the Line Day’ the Cranleigh School kitchens replaced the normal meals with ‘Zambian equivalents’ in terms of food and portion sizes: breakfast was a small bowl of porridge, lunch consisted of polenta (similar to the nshima that is eaten in Zambia), cabbage and beans, and supper was a bowl of soup and a piece of bread. The students who had visited Kawama in July and October of this year cheerfully served up the moderate portions. It was quite a challenge to stick to just this amount, but a significant proportion of students and staff kept to these rations. Even those that did have to break into their tuck boxes, or make an extra trip to Sainsbury’s, were made more aware of how difficult normal life can be without the amount, and availability, of food that we are used to.
As well as raising awareness for global poverty, the day also was a chance to raise funds for Kawama School. Students and staff took part in a £2 mufti day, and a student-run stall, representing the Kawama social enterprise ‘Kawama Krafts’, sold a variety of items that had been made by craftsmen and women in the Kawama community. Incredibly over £2500 was raised! Thank you to all the students that took part in the day, and for the support of the whole school for this special event.
We are still striving to increase our ‘Child Sponsorship’ for the children who attend Kawama School – our target is have at least 250 children sponsored. £12.50 per month provides so much for a child for so little and details of how you could sponsor a child can be found by visiting the Beyond Ourselves website or by getting in touch with Laura Sturdee (lecs@cranleigh.org).
Laura Sturdee
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