Giving Back

Zambia Gold is a Gonzaga University student initiative committed to empowering the people of Zambia. We are ardent believers that education is the key to ending the adverse poverty experienced by most families in Zambia. It is for this reason that we have chosen to provide funding from the sales of Zambia Gold Honey to the Chilena Basic Upper School.

Currently the school in Chilena holds two class sessions a day to accommodate the over eight hundred students in only nine classrooms. For these eight hundred students there are twenty-two teachers and six student teachers who, on average, make less than one dollar a day. We passionately believe in education, and we find it difficult to imagine how a child can see the benefit of schooling when they can barely see the teacher over the ocean of students crammed into classrooms.

Over the next five years, the goal is to not only support the upkeep of the school but to make it a functional place of learning. We hope to raise the capital to bring electricity to the school, finish a three classroom addition, and supplement the teacher salaries to keep the talented people working at Chilena.

Zambia Gold is a not-for-profit initiative that wants to do more than simply hand out money or physical goods. It is founded by Gonzaga University students who have lived and worked in the Zambezi community. It is time to put value back in education for the thousands of children in the Northwest Province of Zambia. It is not our wish to force business or capitalistic economy upon the Zambian people; rather, open the eyes of the children to choices, and let the future build itself.