By MWIZA NZILA
KALUMBILA Minerals Limited (KML) has handed over three 1×3 classroom blocks worth K1.7million to the Ministry of Education in Kisasa area to enhance access to educational facilities for local pupils.
The mine handed over one classroom block at Mutuba Community School and two at Kisasa Day Secondary School.
Speaking during the handover, Education Minister Douglas Syakalima thanked Kalumbila Minerals for the support rendered to his Ministry, which included infrastructure development, provision of learning and teaching materials, scholarship programmes, capacity building and technical support.
The Minister said that Kalumbila being a new district, it needed a collaboration of this kind to respond to its unique challenges.
“This unique collaboration clearly demonstrates that through Private Public Partnerships (PPPs), we can attain efficiency, effectiveness and desired quality in the provision of education. Government attaches great importance to development and clearly understands that meaningful development starts with education, which is the best equaliser of the poor, rural, disadvantaged and vulnerable”, said Syakalima.
KML Assistant General Manager Junior Keyser said the mine was working with the Ministry to enhance the quality of education through system enhancement support and provision of scholarships.
“Without education, it means other sectors of the economy get compromised. It also means failure to understand governance principles and failure to keep up with civilization changes. Lack of education also hampers the optimization of available livelihood opportunities that may be presented through our corporate social responsibility,” said Keyser.
Keyser said through corporate-community social responsibility and with collaboration, the Mutuba Community School block and two others at Kisasa Day Secondary School had been built at a cost of K1,740,000.
KML has appealed to the community to continue supporting such initiatives and work hand-in-hand with Kalumbila Minerals Limited and Government to support future projects.
Since inception, the mine has constructed three new schools, 19 teacher houses and 7×3 classroom blocks.
Four schools have been supported with renovations, 6,600 textbooks have been distributed, 5,500 school desks have been produced by KML’s sawmill while 2,104 more desks have been produced in collaboration with the local authority and Ministry of Education.
Additionally, 350 iPads have been distributed to support online education during the COVID-19 pandemic.
