Meet Ivy Nkhoma

Mike sat down with Ivy Nkhoma this week to chat her work at Kawama School….

I would like to thank Ivy for taking time out of her work today and having a chat with me about herself, her family and her time at Kawama Community School.

Ivy has lived in Old Kawama now for eight years.  She has four children; her son Ezra (28) and daughter Dora (25) live in Lusaka, while her other son Buya (22) and daughter Eunice live at home with her along with one grandchild. Ivy is a widow and previously worked selling items on the local market. It was here that she got talking to a regular customer, Pastor Caphas, from the church at Kawama School.  She explained how difficult she was finding it financially to support her family from the uncertain and irregular income she made at the market. Pastor Caphas offered her a position in charge of the sanitation and Ivy jumped at the chance of a regular income. This was exactly three years ago in January 2013.

When asked about her interests outside of work and school she smiled and said with a family house to run she doesn’t get time for things like that but I know Ivy really enjoys cooking and reading, especially her Bible, as we have spoken about that in the past when I have chatted to her.

Ivy says she loves working at the school and is very impressed with the way that the staff there are so professional and work hard with the children. It makes it such a happy and delightful place to work. Being a family person she also enjoys working in close proximity to the children.

Ivy busy completing some of her admin duties

One of her proudest moments happened at the end of last year when she was approached by Mary, Head Teacher and Pastor Cephas to ask if she would like to take over the newly created role of Administrator rather than organising and undertaking the sanitation side of Kawama School. She told me that she could not believe she was being given the chance. She is now relishing the challenge of the completely new role and working with Mary to free her of some of the paperwork and meeting parents so that Mary can concentrate much more on the teaching and training of teachers role.

Ivy with Catherine Louvend and her children Abigail and Frank who

have just started at Kawama

When asked what would Ivy like to see happen now she had no hesitation in coming out with “to ensure that the children’s education continues to get better and better”.

We are really pleased to see Ivy move into this new position. It has been one of our highlights to see Ivy grow and take on more responsibility at Kawama School. We hope we can empower more people from the local community surrounding all our schools to reach greater things.