Two Suffolk Teachers go to Chingola, Zambia

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Andrew and Amanda Kirk are both teachers at St Louis Catholic Middle School in Bury St Edmunds. Next month they will be not only leaving their jobs. They will also be leaving behind their homes, family and friends and their whole way of life and swapping it for a very different one as they take up their new jobs in Southern Africa.

The two Suffolk teachers, along with their two young boys aged 5 and 7, will be taking up new jobs as teachers at the Amano Christian School in Chingola, Zambia.
Chingola, six hours drive from the airport at Lusaka, is a small town just a few miles from the border with the Democratic Republic of Congo.

The Amano Christian School, explains Andrew, "was born from the need to provide a Christian boarding school near the urban centres of the Copperbelt, to educate the children of missionaries, children orphaned by HIV/Aids and other local disadvantaged children."

Andrew and Amanda first visited the school last year and spent a few weeks there, during which they met the staff and children of the school and had an opportunity to see some of the country first-hand. Following this initial visit they both felt that they wanted to return for a longer period of time to help not only the school but also the many local street children of the area.

As an indication of the strength of their commitment to the children of the area, neither of them will be paid whilst they work there for the next two years. They will need to pay their own accommodation rent and will need to find money to pay the school fees for the education of their own children.

Depending on the availability of an internet connection Andrew and Amanda hope to be able to send regular reports back to the UK by using some of the E2BN project sites such as Making The News and the E2BN Gallery.