Current projects

Our charity building projects give local communities access to new, high quality education and health facilities. Projects are driven by the local community. We work together to identify the issues and the solutions. Our building projects offer our young construction trainees valuable work experience to put their new skills into practise, and we are now employing some of our more experienced graduates to help lead on these projects.

We carefully consider the environmental impact and energy costs of all our charity projects in Africa. We use local building materials, sustainable technologies and improved designs that are appropriate to the local community.

Current projects

Our current community projects are:

Skilled care before, during and after childbirth can save the lives of women and new-born babies. We wanted to improve services for women living around Libuyu Health Centre.

The centre is situated in a poor, heavily populated community in Livingstone and serves an urban population of over 20,000 people. Life is difficult for many people across this community who struggle to make ends meet. Maternal mortality is higher amongst women living in poorer communities, and young adolescents face higher risks of complications then other women.

Phase One: Construction of a new Maternity and Child Health Unit

The delivery room was small, basic and positioned next to the clinic reception area. This offered very little privacy and dignity to women in labour. As a result, pregnant women sometimes waited until night time to go to the clinic. This put both themselves and their unborn child at risk of complications. Due to the demand on beds and staffing, there is little time offered for aftercare once the baby is born.

With your support we have built a new Maternity and Child Health unit to provide more space and privacy for mums and their babies.

The bespoke single storey unit has a new spacious delivery room with two beds, improving safety and capacity. There are now five antenatal beds and five postnatal beds available. There is much improved sanitation facilities with toilets and showers, as well as a sluice room. The unit covers 180sqm, plus a generous waiting area under a mango tree. The wing is connected to mains electricity.

Work was completed in May 2022. The new wing is now temporarily housing the main clinic services, whilst we move onto Phase 2 of the project renovating the existing clinic building.

“This place is going to be full of very happy mothers. We are so grateful to Build It supporters for helping us to improve the welfare and healthcare services here.”

Dr. Manyara Chabona, Medical Officer at Libuyu Health Centre

Phase Two: Redevelopment of existing facilities

The current building was not designed as a clinic, and space is not efficiently used. As demand has increased, health services have been squeezed into limited spaces or have over spilled outside.

With your support, work started in June 2022 to:

• Redevelop the existing building to create consultancy, treatment and examination rooms
• Adapt the back-annexe of the building into a new pharmacy, laboratory plus storage space
• Remodel inpatient wards to create separate spaces for male, female and child wards of 4 to 6 beds
• Update the electrical layout
• Improve toilets and sanitation

These changes will make a big difference in increasing capacity and improving delivery of healthcare services to the wider community. We will be posting progress updates on our News page.

Zambezi Sawmills Community School is a thriving and successful community school in southern Zambia. The school is in a poor, densely populated urban area of Livingstone, about 4km from the town centre.

With over 755 pupils, 349 girls and 406 boys, the school urgently needs additional classroom space as it looks to expand to offer secondary school tuition. This will reduce overcrowding from an average of 80 – 100 pupils currently to each small classroom.

With your support we will recruit 23 young, unemployed men and women from the local area to train in construction skills. They will learn new skills whilst building:

• Three classrooms, plus a dedicated computer room with electricity
• New toilet block for the older children to help improve health and wellbeing, and encourage more girls to stay in education as they grow up

The additional classrooms will make a significant difference in helping to reduce overcrowding, enabling the school to offer secondary education. Headteacher Ms Belita Tembo already runs morning and afternoon sessions to maximise the number of children with access to schooling. But sadly she has to turn away some children from the school gate due to the limited classroom space available.

Your support will change this.

“Our aim is to level the field, that the children can be something in the future, have an education and a career”

Mrs Belita Tembo Zulu, Headteacher at Zambezi Sawmills School

Read more here about our work of building schools in Africa.