JUSTINE'S MATERO GIRLS REPORT

At Matero Girls there are two Chipembele groups, one meets in the morning and the other in the afternoon, which are both actively operating. The morning group consists of 41 and the afternoon group has more than 20 members. These clubs have weekly meetings, on Thursdays, for an hour. The morning meetings are usually chaired by the president of the club, Trina Musonda, and the afternoon meetings are chaired by the vice-president of the club, Blessings Sinkala. Learning is the main activity during the meetings and the lessons are conducted by either the President or Vice-President. On other days they pick litter around school and do some intense cleaning of the school premises, and on Fridays the club members and their leaders water the orchard. The litter picked around the school is later reused to make useful things, for example bags, which are later exhibited and were once exhibited at Alliance France. After some weeks of learning the group usually has local quiz to check whether people understand. Some of the topics they learn as a group are; • Deforestation • Effects of climate change • Importance of trees • Recycling • Fighting climate change The future plan is to start selling the collected bottles to companies and use the money to hold functions. The only challenge they are facing is the lack of seriousness from a few students and getting all students to attend. Mr. Tembo said he will need to have an outsider to go and meet with him and the group to come up with a monitoring and evaluating system. He has noticed the lack of seriousness from some students, which makes it hard for him to know the effectiveness of the group.