Shine started its first literacy school in January 2007 called Shine Zambia Reading Academy.
Shine Zambia Reading Academy serves the orphans and vulnerable children living in the shanty compound of Kalikiliki on the outskirts of Zambia’s capital city, Lusaka. In this compound around 40,000 people live in 3,000 basic houses with most families surviving on less than $1 a day.
Going hand-in-hand with the poverty is a high illiteracy level. There are no government schools in the township. Families here are often torn apart by the rampant spread of HIV/AIDS, with much of the middle generation wiped out leaving children in the care of grandparents, helpful relatives, or simply themselves.
Shine Zambia Reading Academy is different to other schools: it runs a free 2-year course focused on literacy and numeracy aimed at the poorest, most vulnerable children. At the end of the course children are expected to graduate, provided they’ve reached our prescribed literacy level. Shine then places them in formal education in nearby schools where they enter directly into Grade 5 and we pay for their tuition fees until they complete Grade 7.
