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ZAMBIA
I have just qualified to grade eight where school fees and other materials are expensive. My guardians have a lot of school going children. As I am an orphan I am taken as last priority by my guardian. If I am left without sponsorship, my education will suffer. I would like to complete grade twelve. When I finish school I shall help other members of the family to complete school. I need to have a better life in future when I complete school. I am doing fine in school. As a girl, if am not educated I will end up getting married and life will not be easy. However I thank you for your good support you have been giving me. May God bless you and your family. Youth in the program are selected on the basis of their academic ability and their financial need. Most of the selected youth are orphans, many on account of the AIDS epidemic (34 % of all children under 15 have lost one or both parents, and 21.5% of adults are HIV +). Deep Roots Zambia provides school and examination fees, a uniform, shoes, a blanket, school supplies, and room, board, and transportation fees for boarding secondary schools. Going to school is the best chance Zambian children have to take control of their lives; an educated population is the best chance Zambia has to combat AIDS, gender inequality, and the overwhelming problems of poverty.
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The mission of Deep Roots Zambia is to allow disadvantaged youth in the Southern Province of
Zambia to go to school. Education is prohibitively expensive for many rural Zambians - one year
of secondary school costs more than $380, while per capita GDP is just $1500 and many subsistence
farmers live on much less. In her renewal application last year, one of our scholars wrote:
DRZ works in cooperation with the Zambian non-profit organization DAPP (Development Aid from People to People).
DAPP works with small-scale community-based development projects to improve health, education and the environment.
It has been a long-time partner of UNICEF, USAID and other groups in Southern Zambia. DAPP handles everything
from paying school fees and distributing school supplies to organizing the periodic visits to each of the
children in DRZ's scholarship program.