Dear friends of Barefoot School,

We send you deepest and warm greetings from Zambia!

We write this letter to acknowledge your wonderful and timely support that your have given to our school. Its right and fitting to say that your support to the school can not be measured estimated or weighed. In other words, you are simply our good partners especially that the global village is working towards the millennium development goals by 2015. These goals, especially under education can only be a meaningful dream through strong partnership such as the one you have shown us. It is for this reason that the administration of the Barefoot School strives to give to the vulnerable community and to be accountable to our partners such as you.

Currently Barefoot school accommodates 143 pupils. Though 143 are currently accommodated, the list of the “would like to be” our pupils is endless from year to year. Most of the children come from homes that are hunger stricken. Their families can hardly provide basic needs such as education, health, food, proper shelter, just to mention a few.

We are glad to inform you, our partners that we have provided quality education as seen from the performance of our pupils at national level examinations. In the area of nutrition, the school has been providing two meals per day i.e. breakfast and lunch. Since the feeding programme began the performance of our children has extremely improved. In terms of health, the school takes keen interest in the welfare of our learners. This year alone the school co-ordinator organised a bilharzias awareness forum with the health personnel from the nearest clinic. Besides that, dental personnel were also called in to talk to our pupils and the entire staff on oral health care. The reason why we embarked on this health programmes is that the school strongly believes that "A healthy child is a higher achiever". However, the school is unable to provide shelter to those in extreme cases due to financial constraint beside the school tries by all mean to bridge the gap between families. In very extreme cases the school has rendered assistance to the needy families with shelter.

Infrastructure: In order to provide quality education, the school administration has embarked on a renovation exercise. You may admit that renovations are costly every where. The renovations were necessary as the building initial structure was for chicken and pigs and only some years later for a school.
The flowing activities were planned:
• New roof
• Up grading the window system

• Plastering and painting the school hall
• Plastering and rough casting the outer walls.
The school administration is pleased to say that all these activities have been nearly completed. As the school re-opens for the third terms the pupils will be greeted by a new look of the school.

We are glad to put it in writing that through your support, many children’s lives have been improved through education. Over ten years down the road, the results are numerous to highlight one by one. Children whom the community did not count, now the community hold them in high esteem. One of those who have passed through our school and is doing better is Nelson Kaseba. He is currently in his second year in the training of a catholic priest. He was a humble and faithful student at our school. A good number of former barefoot students are currently working with Werner Dällenbach at the regional plot as builders and brick layers. The young men were trained in brick laying. They had their course at Barefoot school. The tutors came from Lusaka. The aim of the course was to empower young men with survival skills. Today as we write, there are a number of buildings that the school is associated with through these young men, such as the regional plot and the new 1X3 classroom block at Yengwe Basic School.

One young lady is about to complete her Pre-school course by the end of this year while another girl is taking an electrical course. As we earlier indicated, the list of the former Barefoot School students doing fine is quite numerous to itemize.

Finally we would like to sincerely thank you for your wonderful support. It’s hard to find words to say thank you for all that you have done to our school over the years. Without your support, the few living legends would not be legends without your support. It is through your support that these young men and women are today what they are.

We wish you and your families Gods blessings!

Yours in child development

Kennedy Kazeze
Head Teacher