St Joseph's Nenagh visit St Edmund's Mazabuka in Zambia
At the end of March 09, seven students from Transition Year and Fifth Year and three teachers from St Joseph's CBS travelled to St. Edmund's Secondary School in Mazabuka, Zambia.
St. Joseph’s CBS Nenagh has been participating in the Edmund Rice World Immersion Programme for the past 4 years, and has undertaken two immersion trips to Zambia with students already. The school carries out fundraising to pay for travel costs. There was a desire from the coordinating team in the school to develop an ongoing school linking project that would involve students and teachers in both schools. WorldWise provided support for an Irish Teacher Visit to St Edmunds in July 2008. The outcome of that was a Partnership Agreement which set out a programme of shared learning activiites. WorldWise also provided support for the pre and post Student Visit development education activities and for joint school learning activities.
In preparation for the student visit , the Transition Year programe included weekly classes on Development issues. The theme for the visit was sharing information about home places: the Irish group took pictures with them to Zambia of buildings and sights in Nenagh. Cameras were provided as part of the project and were used during the visit by students from both schools to record the buildings and sights of Mazabuka. The students enjoyed sharing information with each other in this way and also sharing it with other students on their return to Ireland.
A representative from WorldWise and Irish Aid met up with both schools during the visit and facilitated discussions on prioritising development issues and identifying their key objectives for school linking. The students and teachers were interested in the consistent picture that emerged from all the discussion groups. The outcomes will help WorldWise and Irish Aid establish evaluation targets that reflect both Irish and Partner school views.
With support from WorldWise, St Joseph's and St Edmund's are continuing joint learning activities in 2009-10. St Joseph's is also looking forward to hosting a visit by teachers from St Edmund's so they can show them their school and community in return for the welcome they have received during their visits to Mazabuka.
