Helen De Vos School Testimony
Dear Mrs. De Vos,
My name is Daria Charlesworth and I am the Director of Guidance and
College Counseling at the Purnell School, an all-girls boarding school for
grades 9 through 12 in Pottersville, NJ. I have had the good fortune to be
a chaperone on a community service trip our school has sponsored to
Zambia, and so I helped supervise nine junior and senior students while
they stayed at the House of Moses in Lusaka. We visited the Helen De Vos
Christian School in the Kanyama section on March 11, 2008. I wanted to let
you know how impressed we have been by the school building, by the faculty
and students, and by the incredible progress that has been made there.
We arrived at the school in two four-wheel drive vehicles, carrying a
total of 15 people- nine students, my colleague William Warlick and me,
and administrators from CACZ. It is difficult to describe how rugged the
trip to the school was. Once we entered the Kanyama compound the road
became a dirt path strewn with jagged rocks, which made the trip very slow
and bumpy. Pools of standing water from recent rains were also part of the
roadway. We stopped in front of the cement wall that encloses the school
and we were greeted by many children in dark blue uniforms with “Helen De
Vos Christian School” on the backs of the sweaters. We entered the school
and it was like being in a different world- fresh concrete walls, new
windows, an open courtyard, and beautiful wooden doors were evident as we
walked into the compound. In the Library we were surrounded by cartons of
books and cardboard boxes containing brand-new desks as well as food
supplies for the children. The physical plant is unlike anything we have
seen in Zambia, and we toured at least four community schools in the two
weeks we spent in Lusaka and Siavonga. But more important is the
excitement and brightness we saw in the eyes of the students as they
settled into their beautiful new classrooms. They are so eager to learn!
One of the requirements for our nine students from Purnell was for them to
plan a lesson to be taught to Zambian 5th and 6th graders. Our students
split into two groups and taught two classes at he the Helen De Vos
School, one for 5th grade and one for 6th grade. Our students expected
the Zambian students to be disinterested and blasé, as American students
might be. Nothing could be further from the truth. The students were
polite, engaged, and so excited to be learning something new. We were
impressed by the high level of attention from the Helen De Vos students,
as well as the enthusiasm and interest of their teachers. In fact, one of
the teachers said to me, “I wish you were here for three weeks, I could
learn so much from your students!” The Purnell students had prepared
posters, worksheets, art projects, and songs related to the lesson on the
water cycle, in an effort to use all sensory modalities- visual, auditory,
experiential- to explain the concepts. The students and faculty at Helen
De Vos were so welcoming and eager to learn from us.
Your gift of this school is extraordinary, and I wanted to let you know
how important it is in the overall context of education in Zambia. In our
travels we have met so many wonderful children who are motivated to learn,
yet have such poor facilities that we wonder how they can possibly
concentrate on their lessons. At the Helen De Vos School they are safe,
well fed, have desks and materials, and have a peerless opportunity to
succeed. It is an experiment in Zambian education that must continue,
because it has so much potential to change the lives of Zambia’s future
leaders. Though I am not affiliated with a church denomination (Purnell
School is non-sectarian) I am so impressed with the work of the Christian
Alliance for Children in Zambia as well as your magnificent high school. I
see this school as an enormous contribution to the future of Zambia, and I
hope you will continue to support it.
Sincerely,
Daria Charlesworth, RN, MS
Director of Guidance and College Counseling
Purnell School