A Week in Kashitu: Construction, Meetings, and a Zambian Wedding

The second half of June brought another busy week to Kashitu. After arriving in Zambia, Vašek met up with Twiza, and together they continued their journey to Kashitu. Along the way, they stopped in the community of Kaveri to document the sanitation facilities at the local school.

Once they arrived, the daily agenda quickly got underway. The week included meetings with the local team, a financial review, discussions about the placement of new composting toilets, as well as an inventory and maintenance of tools. With the second monitoring visit for the UNDP Challenge Fund project approaching, we needed to finalize the preparation phase. This year's project focuses on the construction and operation of composting toilets. Preparations included processing questionnaires based on a survey of the local farming community, confirming the final locations of the toilets on and around the school grounds, and making all the necessary arrangements before construction begins in the coming days. Meanwhile, the rest of the team traveled to Kapiri and Ndola, although their journey was complicated by a vehicle breakdown.

You probably still remember last year's construction of the beekeeping workshop, along with the hands-on training and practical lessons that took place there. This year, we are taking the next step by helping the workshop and the team of local beekeepers develop it into a small business. The first honey harvest of the season has just begun, and we have agreed to purchase 2.2 tonnes of raw honey from local beekeepers. The honey will then be processed in our beekeeping workshop and sold as high-quality, pure honey at a higher price, ensuring that more of the added value remains within the local community. Things moved quickly, and we have already purchased more than one tonne of raw honey from local beekeepers.

One of the week's major construction milestones was the installation of the transformer. This builds on last year's work to electrify the campus. Together with our partner, the CEZ Group, and its experts - who have become an integral part of our team - we established a backup power source to ensure electricity during outages of the public grid. This backup system consists of a photovoltaic power plant with battery storage installed as part of the campus's first completed building, the workshop.

Following the successful completion of the photovoltaic project, we have now moved on to the next stage: connecting the campus to the public electricity grid. The new transformer has been installed near the power lines behind the workshop building. For safety reasons, it stands on a reinforced concrete foundation that provides stability and protects it from standing water during the rainy season. The entire area has also been fenced off to prevent unauthorized access. The work is now nearly complete, and we are waiting only for the final grid connection and certification.

The week also brought memorable cultural experiences. One of the highlights was attending a traditional local wedding, filled with lively singing, dancing, and music.

Towards the end of the week, Vašek visited the sewing workshop, where several sewing machines required inspection and maintenance. The team also worked on configuring the solar power system and resolving various technical details. Despite the inevitable challenges, it was clear that things in Kashitu were gaining momentum once again and that the project was moving steadily in the right direction.

The working week concluded on Friday with the pouring of the foundation slab for this year's new building - the classroom. This will be the first building on the campus dedicated exclusively to theoretical instruction for vocational subjects and, once the pilot teaching programme is launched, will also serve students in Grades 8 and 9.

Over the weekend, the concrete foundation was left to cure properly. In the following week, construction of the classroom itself will begin under the leadership of Sam, who has now arrived in Kashitu together with another group of volunteers.