The United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) is providing emergency support to flood affected Zambian schools. UNICEF has flown in 58 schools-in-box from its supply division in Copenhagen.
The highly portable materials are designed to provide teachers and students with everything they need to resume school, an extremely important activity especially for children whose families have been forced to flee their homes because of rising floodwaters or in areas where school buildings have been damaged or destroyed. Each schools-in-box contains enough supplies for 100 children, which will be distributed over 40 community and government schools in flood damaged areas of Southern, Lusaka, and Western Provinces. The Zambia Ministry of Education will provide the educational materials. The kits contain learning material for students from standard 1-9 and include exercise books; slates, an inflatable globe, a student register; crayons, pencils, pencil sharpeners, ball-point pens and felt-tip pens; erasers; two chalkboards; chalk and chalk duster; chalkboard paint; a chalkboard compass and ruler; a clock; flipchart markers; scissors; tape; paint brushes; several educational posters; over 90 coloured wooden cubes; book bags; rulers; safety scissors; and a metal box for transport and storage. UNICEF Zambia will be providing $139,000 in emergency supplies to the Ministry of Education, including 36 large tents and 40 recreation kits which include volleyballs, netballs, footballs, nets, and whistles.
