When Shine was first established, our literacy programme was based in a small rented house in the local community of Kalikiliki, where we converted bedrooms into classrooms. We ran the school from a house for 3 years. However, in 2009 we constructed our own school building using money raised by various UK-based fundraising events over a two-year period. The new school opened in January 2010.
Every one of the 40,000 bricks used to construct the school was made manually with cement and water moulded in a manual block-making machine. It cost Shine 20 pence to make each brick. This was all done without electricity or running water at the site – just the hard work of local people building a school for their children.
The construction project brought significant investment into a very poor community and provided paid employment for many people – builders, carpenters, plumbers, welders, bricklayers, general labourers and also cooks to prepare lunch for the workers. All construction materials used were bought locally in Zambia.
Since the initial construction project, three further phases of work have grown the school into one of the largest non-State schools in the area. An Admin block (office, kitchen, store room and staff room) plus library were built in 2011, opening in January 2012. Another building including 3 more classrooms and a school hall were built in 2013. Finally, a wall was built around the school in 2016 to protect it – this was in response to the growing problem of theft, vandalism and rubbish dumping that we experienced at Shine.