Teacher Aid
History

Teacher Aid History

Teacher Aid was registered in 2004. During a life-changing Zambian holiday in 2002, Maggie Beecher visited a school in a shantytown outside Lusaka. She was appalled and saddened at the poverty and lack of resources. Pre 2013 she and the Trustees supported GSM in Lusaka, built Chiziro Ethembeni near Chipata. She then came across Nsobe lodge by chance and found that a tiny school had been started 3 years earlier in the home of the owners.

In 2013 there were 60 children in 3 makeshift classrooms. She remembers vividly the different impacts these children made – warm, friendly, excited and loving the education! Fiona Tomlinson, the founder, explained how she and her (now late) husband’s dream was to build a complete school up to Grade 12, GCSE level, and then build an agricultural Tertiary college for Zambians to learn modern farming methods and utilize the fertile but wasted land surrounding them.

Maggie agreed to support Nsobe and loved the idea that these children would have a complete education leading to job opportunities. The other schools ended at Primary with little hope of a future for pupils. The TA trustees board of Trustees changed, with support for our 2 previous schools continuing by the former Trustees. GSM is going well and Chiziro is now a Government school. Mike Papadacos joined us in 2018 and is doing an invaluable job as Treasurer and technical adviser to Nsobe.

Maggie, Mike and the Teacher Aid team feel privileged to have had the opportunity of helping to uplift a deprived community. We are working tirelessly to help improve the lives of Zambians into the foreseeable future, endeavouring to bring remote schools up to standard, using Nsobe Community School as the model.