By STEPHANIE KUNDA –
CHIFUBU area Member of Parliament Frank N’gambi has donated 1,900 exercise books to Kaniki Secondary school in Ndola.
Mr N’gambi said the donation had come from President Edgar Lungu as a gesture to the people to encourage the importance of education.
“I have an opportunity to personally communicate the good gesture from the President to the pupils and also encourage them on the need for the girl-child to protect themselves from HIV/AIDS as well as early marriages,” he said.
Mr N’gambi said the issue of child and forced marriages in the area needed to be addressed and parents in the area should encourage their children to go to school so that they could secure their future.
Mr N’gambi said it was the role of school managements to communicate the need to protect the girl child because it was only through education that poverty would be reduced and it was imperative for all to work together in order to secure the lives of the young ones.
The MP who was speaking when handing over the books to pupils at Kaniki Secondary said Copperbelt was lucky because HIV prevalence was at 14 per cent while others like Lusaka where at 16 per cent.
Mr N’gambi advised the Parent’s Teachers Association (PTA) to sensitise the community on the HIV/AIDS epidemic in Zambia adding that he would address to parents for them to commit themselves to ensure all girls completed grade 12 at Kaniki Secondary School.
Mr N’gambi said he was happy to visit the school because the last time he came they sat to ensure that the school be upgraded to secondary school and worked round the clock to ensure government did so which they did and this year the first grade 10 pupils had been enrolled.
He said most of the girls each time they went to secondary school where going to Chifubu Secondary and were renting houses there which exposed them to HIV infections, early pregnancies which eventually hindered there academic future so last year government upgraded the school.
Mr N’gambi also said he was happy the ministry of General Education had committed itself to improve school infrastructure.
“The big challenge is that the school will carter for pupils from as far as 20 km. We need to engage Government for another secondary school to be constructed which will reduce the distance for pupils,” he said.
Mr N’gambi said engagement of the corporate world was needed to encourage education and also urged the management to be role models.
He said next month he would donate 100 bags of cement as a contribution to improvement of the school infrastructure.
Precious Kapinji a grade 10 pupil at Kaniki Secondary School said it was a privilege for go to donate the books and urged girls that had dropped out from school because of early pregnancies that it was never too late to come back.