•Group leader Mushiya in a classroom.

At Kansanshi Mine, education is valued as the key to sustainable development and the modern currency for transformation of society. It determines the direction of individual lives. Nelson Mandela said “education is the most powerful weapon which you can use to change the world.”  Within the same orbit of thought, a traditional leader in Solwezi District has started going to school to inspire children. His love for education shows openly that he is an enemy to those imprisoned by illiteracy. Vincent Mubambe (no relation with the author) has come out in the open and wears school uniform. John Mubambe reports…
A DRIVE to the North-western direction of Solwezi Town leads to Kamatete, a traditional settlement under Kapijimpanga chieftainship where our subject, also recognised as group leader Mushiya, can be found.
It was amazing to find the group leader in his school uniform amidst pupils on their last day of sitting for the 2015 Grade Seven composite examinations.
The 44-year-old traditional leader is married with eleven children and four grandchildren. In 1989 he sat for the same Grade Seven examinations at Katandano Primary School but failed to make it to Grade Eight.
Many years later, he joined the Kamatete Adult Literacy education programme sponsored by Kansanshi Mine to promote education amongst elderly people in the community.
Adult literacy education is a life-changing intervention programme embraced by community members and local leaders from communities surrounding Kansanshi Mine.
In 2011, Kansanshi Mine and the Government through Community Development in Solwezi got into partnership to roll-out an adult literacy programme to community members in Mushitala, Kabwela, Kabulobe, Kyafukuma, Kamatete, and Wisdom.
The arrangement was that the mine would provide the funding for the project whilst Government (Community Development) provides materials in the form of adult literacy guides and technical support.
It is the knowledge that the group leader gained from the adult literacy class that prompted him to rewrite his Grade Seven examinations this year at Kamatete Primary school after 26 years.
“I must thank Kansanshi Mine for introducing the adult literacy class here at Kamatete. This programme has been very helpful to me and many people in this community,” he says.
And now he has contributed to an atmosphere dominated by learning at Kamatete Primary school through his friendly interaction with both teachers and pupils. And he is confident about the situation.
“I am happy that Kansanshi’s corporate social responsibility team has helped many people in adult literacy schools to learn how to read and write in Kiikaonde and English, and how to tackle basic arithmetic. I find this education most rewarding,” he says.
Kansanshi Mine runs the classes in communities around the mine to enhance basic and functional literacy so that they too contribute to the well-being of the province and the nation at large.
The group leader emphasises the importance of a traditional leader going to school: “A leader should be educated, otherwise leading people when you are not educated has many challenges, among them, children in the area not attending school. There are great benefits in having community leaders with education at heart.”
Contrary to common aspirations of getting an education to secure employment, Mushiya says: “I do not have an intention to get employed, but to acquire enough education to sharpen my management skills in the village.”
Appetite
Mushiya says the two years he has spent in pursuing adult education have provoked an appetite for further studies.
“Grade Seven examinations were easy because I was fully prepared to pass with the knowledge from my adult literacy teachers. I long to continue with my studies after the results,” he says.
He confesses that he comes from a family where no one is educated.
“The absence of educated people in our family pains me a lot; and that is why I decided to go back to school so that one day I may lead the family towards education.”
Mushiya has appealed for sponsorship from the company to proceed to Grade Eight, should he pass his exams. He has been inspired by famous Kenyan school entrants like the late Kimani Maruge who went to school at the age of 84 in 2004 and died five years later. Additionally, 90-year-old Priscilla Sitienei went to school with six of her great-great-grandchildren.
He hopes to spark a revolution where older learners who stopped going to school long ago opt to go back to the classroom.
Mushiya is a God-fearing leader who condemns common practices of witchcraft and beer-drinking:
“I can’t join the sphere of wizards because practicing witchcraft has no future. And I cannot mix drinking with education. I shall remain a staunch member of the club of Christians and academicians,” he says.
He goes to Baptist Church and for the past four years that he has been a group leader, his charismatic leadership has been weaved by a mixture of benevolence and amity.
The school head girl, Bridget Kalota says Mushiya is a role model in Kamatete Area because he encourages everyone to go to school.
“We love the group leader because he is a motivator and he advises us on school matters,” she says.
School Head Teacher Lemmy Miyanda believes that the group leader’s positive influence on education will produce a change of mindset among the people in the area.
It is a great achievement for the group leader to go to school. “He is the first parent learning among children in the history of this school which opened in the year 2000,” the head teacher explains.
Focus
Mushiya’s commitment to fight social vices that bruise the pride of women in Kamatete has helped the mine focus on the locality as a prime operation area for advocacy against gender-based violence and early marriages.
“Children are usually alone in the villages whilst their parents are many kilometres away cultivating the farm lands,” the head teacher says. “And these children are exposed to all sorts of illicit acts. I am happy the group leader and Kansanshi Mine have agreed to work together in the crusade against these vices.’
For Kamatete people, the long-awaited partnership with Kansanshi in the promotion of education and the fight against early marriages has just been born.
FQM Chief Executive Officer Phillip Pascall once said: “Our economic contribution is much higher than our direct investment when multiplier effects are taken into account.” – Courtesy of SUMA SYSTEMS