DID YOU. HAVE A DESK WHEN YOU BEGAN SCHOOL?

My Mum, Marguerite McDonald began school in 1915 at Creswick No 122 in a school which had been built by Anthony Pascoe; in 1854. In 1850 there were around 5000 already in Creswick. Mum’s mother Margaret Williams came with her family from Cornwall for the gold mining. I could have sat in one of the desks my Mum and her sisters and brothers used.

Before our small family charity Kondanani Zambia can cooperate in building a school, we do have to ensure that toilet pits are dug with a partner NGO, and that water is available for washing hands after toileting, to prevent disease.

There’s a great difference in the schools we have helped to build in Zambia. In many, many of the schools there are no desks – sometimes some Chinese made desks have been given, but they’ve been very unsatisfactory because the steel is second-rate, and break. One school principal learned to weld, however the Chinese steel would not respond to weld. We have many photos of kids sitting on logs or rocks – not so easy for writing an exam!  Son Mark has been monitoring our projects every two years recently, and it has moved him to provide better desks. 

On his first trip home this June for nearly 3 years, Mark and John had daughter Jill’s brother-in-law Trevor Coad along, from Ballarat Central UCA, and they spent a happy time designing a desk which they think can be made by the UCZ CHODORT training centre in southern Zambia, Choma.

Trevor is going to see if they can use the most readily available small and easily obtainable welding material and make a proto-type. If the proto-type works, we hope to freight it to Zambia, and supply funds for the desks to be made at the Joinery Works in the UCZ training school in Choma. We have some funds available for the steel and timber and manufacture.

Rev. Jenny Preston