Changing lives at Nayamba School

In 2010, the owners of the Nagwaza Farm in the Chisamba district of Zambia founded Nayamba School. Their aim was to educate the children of families working on all the surrounding farms because there was no affordable school close enough nearby. This wonderful free school now educates more than 350 children from the local area.

Today, Nayamba School is supported by The Nayamba Trust, a charity built around a thriving educational community and supported by the Nagwaza Farm, trustees and volunteers in Zambia, the UK and beyond.

Initially designed for primary-aged pupils and consisting of three classrooms and a small office, today we provide a pre-school, 10 classrooms for Years 1 to 9 and a sustainable Trade Centre for apprentices to learn a trade once they leave Nayamba School. Over the years, we have also built 12 houses for teachers to live on site.

The Nayamba Trust works closely with the school to develop good educational practice by supporting teacher training and development, and providing basics such as textbooks and electricity. But we still need to do more.

Donate

Because of our 100 percent model, every single penny you donate or raise goes directly to Nayamba School.

“Education is the most powerful weapon we can use to change the world.”

— Nelson Mandela

Here’s how we help.

All the money we raise goes directly to supporting Nayamba School - in many different ways. Here are some of the important initiatives we support through your donations:

Education Strategy

Nayamba School follows the national Zambian Curriculum, supplemented by tested learning techniques such as synthetics phonics.

Infrastructure

We support the renovation and repurposing of existing buildings and fund new constructions as needed.

Scholarships

Our scholarship programme supports gifted students to them to continue their studies elsewhere after leaving Nayamba.

Food Programme

We aim to give every single child in Nayamba School a hot, nutritious meal and some snacks every day.

Facilities

We provide effective facilities for the school, including the funding to find and establish new boreholes.

Projects

Projects range from large infrastructure projects to small one-off requirements, such as improving the school’s wifi.

Resources

We fund the purchase of resources, ranging from learning-through-play toys for pre-school to exam textbooks for older students.

Teacher development

Through trips and online CPD we support our teachers to develop their classroom management and learner centred teaching skills.

Exams

As an officially registered exam centre, Nayamba School enables students to sit their nationally recognised exams on site. Exams are sat in the student’s comfortable and familiar environment.

Mentoring

Through coaching, we support the school’s senior leadership team to identify and improve areas for development in the school.

Some of our recent school projects

  • Teachers' houses

    We built houses for our teachers so that we can attract and recruit great teachers to this rural location in Zambia.

  • Accessing water

    The first challenge was finding a clean, deep water source, then drilling a borehole, adding a solar pump and tank.

  • Playground

    All children learn through play, so one of our volunteer projects was to build heavy duty play equipment for playtime fun.

  • Sanitation

    Due to improvements in sanitation, the school no longer drop holes but has purpose built toilets and a hand washing area.

  • Food programme

    In order to banish hunger and help children learn better, we fund daily hot nutritious food for all our children.

What Nayamba means
to our students

We love talking to the students at Nayamba. They are so happy to share their experiences and tell us what being at Nayamba means to them. Even students who have moved on and progressed to other schools, to continue their education, are delighted to return and share inspiring stories as to why Nayamba holds a special place in their heart.

Not forgetting our amazing teachers

We can build buildings, provide resources, feed our students, but at the heart of Nayamba is our amazing teaching staff. We work closely with all our teachers to ensure their continuing professional development so that they can continue to be the very best they can be for our students.

Want to make a donation?

Whatever you can spare, you can be
100 percent sure it will make a difference.

Donate now

Vanessa Pestridge
Trustee

Vanessa is the current Chair of Nayamba trustees. She first visited Nayamba in 2012, and has returned as trip leader numerous times. Vanessa is also the Vicar at Exminster Parish Church - St.Martins.

Meet the team

Louise Mayor
Trustee

Louise first visited Nayamba in 2023 with her eldest son. She is a highly experienced communications and marketing professional. She works for EDT The Educational Development Trust.

Andrew R. Mackereth
Trustee

Andrew Mackereth is a former Secondary Headteacher and recently retired from education to become a full-time composer and conductor. He began his career as a music teacher, before climbing the leadership ladder and training as an OFSTED inspector and School Improvement Advisior. He joined the Nayamba team in 2022 and leads on our UK educational activities.

Jo Hooper
Trustee

Jo is a our Financial Lead at Nayamba. She’s also a financial Director of a shop fitting company, and her hobbies include beekeeping, keeping chickens, ducks. Dog lover - owning three labradors. She says “I absolutely love Nayamba, I’m often really moved to know we can all be involved in helping kids get a real education to lift their lives forever”.

Sarah Benthall
Trustee

Sarah works for a local health charity looking after their volunteers and community spaces. She’s been a keen supporter of Nayamba for many years and loves hearing the stories from the school and the challenges they often overcome.

Dave Collins
Trustee

Dave visited the school in 2015, wife visited in 2016 and 2018 and they’ve continually supported ever since - our hope is for all children at Nayamba to have a good start in life with education and well-being. Dave works in local government, supporting clients who cannot manage their own finances for various reasons.

Helen Day
Trustee

Helen works as an Educationalist, and oversees our school safeguarding at Nayamba, working directly with the staff to provide CPD online.

Valeria Ortega
Student Engagment Officer

Valeria is currently in her last year at University, and supporting Nayamba by signposting students to the charity, and ways they can get involved. She has a wealth of volunteering experience as well as being an accomplished photographer, videographer and poet.