Gap Year Program

Community Service Projects

KF requires all its gap year students to participate in community service projects and to identify a need in their community and address through community service. The students’ role is to help their specific community service project through the role given to them by your supervisor. This pro-bono service will improve their local communities by providing their knowledge and passion to change certain disparities in Zambia. Gap year students are responsible for writing reports about the progress they are making at their community service project and the impact they believe they are having at their specific community service project.                                                                                

Internships/Work Experience

KF ensures that the gap year students achieve certain objectives during work experience after placing them in various organizations, which help provide the students with an idea of what is involved at places of work, and hopefully understand their career paths better. KF seeks to provide the gap year students with the necessary tools and skills to find employment after college. The internship is a new component of the gap year program through the Leadership and Life Skills summit. KF gap year students will volunteer at a KF work experience partners the last Friday of each month. KF students have interned at UTH, Toyota Zambia, CIDRZ, ZamSolar, HAZIDA Motors, World Bank, Civil Trust Engineers, the Kucetekela Foundation office, Nkanza Labs, Zulu Burrows Engineers, MultiChoice Zambia and Legal Aid. The internship experience is imperative because it helps KF students decide where and what they should study in college.                                                                       

College Preparation

Below are organizations and programs we work with and partner with:

African Leadership Academy

ALA is a prestigious A-Level program in Johannesburg, South Africa, which covers tuition for needy students if the students agree to come back and work in Africa for ten years. We had one student accepted in 2011 and another in 2012. Two more students have been selected as finalists in 2013 but decided to matriculate into Pestalozzi UK program.

Restless Development

Restless Development in Zambia runs volunteer programs, which incorporate Zambian and UK youth into community teaching teams. These teams live in rural areas and work to educate youth in subjects from Livelihood Activities to Sexual Reproduction Health and Civic Engagement. Selection into this three-month program enables volunteers to develop valuable leadership and teaching skills, engage in an impactful and valuable service to the community, and become part of a large ex-volunteer in-country network.

Pestalozzi UK IB Program

This is a program, which places Pestalozzi students in an IB program in the UK. There is an application and testing portion of the selection process.  If selected, the gap year student(s) must also sit for the IELTS (English language proficiency exam). In 2013, two gap year students applied for the scholarship and matriculated into the IB program.

MasterCard Scholars Program

This program allows students from southern Africa to apply directly to top universities in North America such as McGill, Arizona State, Michigan State, Earth University, University of Toronto and many others. This is a great opportunity for the gap year students to study in the states, Canada or Costa Rica because they don’t have to take the SAT’s to apply but you should find out application requirements (such as completing A-levels) before having students apply.

Education USA Program (formerly USAP – US Student Achievers Program)

The EdUSA program targets secondary school students and graduates who display strong academic talent but lack financial means to apply to universities and scholarships in the United States. Each year, through a highly competitive selection process, between 15 and 30 students are admitted into the program. Through their membership they have the advantage of working closely with the EdUSA staff to prepare for the SATs, perfect their applications and essays, and seek out and apply for scholarships. The EdUSA program covers the students’ test fees and works to waive application fees. Students also gain the advantage of access to the US Embassy’s resources in both paper and electronic form as they research programs and prepare for the exams. 

SAT Prep

From February to June, the American International School of Lusaka volunteers a few of its teachers to conduct SAT prep classes for our students twice a week (once in math, once in English).  For those students participating in EdUSA, this is an invaluable help since most Zambian students are unequipped to take the SAT’s when they leave secondary school.

Zambian Universities

KF Students apply to the University of Zambia (UNZA) and the Cooperbelt University every year. KF strives to matriculate all gap year students into education beyond secondary school with full bursaries. To date, our program has been very successful with matriculating seven (7) students with full bursaries to these Zambian universities.

Leadership & Life Skills Summit

Since the gap year program is the beginning of the gap year students’ “real world” experience, there is a need for a program that will teach them skills that will help solidify jobs and get admitted into top universities. KF has implemented a Leadership and Life Skills Initiative that will help the gap year students develop hard and soft skills but most importantly, help them understand what their goals are and how those goals fit in their vision for their life. So, this program helps our gap year students work on their leadership qualities and life skills that will help them in the "real world" such as how to prepare an elevator pitch, understanding their brand and etiquette to name a few.