The Next Step

Rose and I have just finished series of literacy teacher training seminars. Our major objective was to choose, train and give experience to local teams of literacy teacher trainers. We tried to create local teams of trainers in 2007 -- and failed. The people we worked with didn't have enough experience for us to feel comfortable letting them loose. Still, we couldn’t fill all the demands for training teachers.

In December we were told that the Bulungu group of teachers had capable people. So, the end of March we went to the town of Bulungu to conduct a second workshop specifically for trainers. We also invited the best people from nearby Luniungu Secteur (equivalent to a county in our terms) who participated in our 2007 training. We quickly found that most of the Bulungu literacy teachers were not capable of training others; indeed, they needed a refresher course themselves. The workshop served that purpose just fine, greatly improving the program in Bulungu.

In the end, two people from Bulungu stood out. To our delight, 4 more participants from Luniungu villages showed clear promise as trainers. Let me introduce you to them.

Pastor Mibwe is the pastor of the Patmos Baptist Church in Bulungu.

Mamie Fala is a primary school teacher in the village of Mukinzi, and the wife of Jean Ndulu.

Jeannette Mbaba is a primary school teacher, wife of the primary school director in the church center Molembe, and the motor of literacy work in her area.

Charlotte N’sele is a high school teacher and wife of the primary school director in Zaba Center.

Anne-Marie Lusanga is the president of the Baptist women for the district of Bulungu, a high school teacher and wife of a school director, and motor for development activities in her area.

And Jean Ndulu is a nurse in charge of the health clinic at Mukinzi. They’re all active teachers of literacy classes and active in their churches.

After choosing our new local literacy trainers, we divided them into two teams and took them to do training seminars in two locations under our supervision. The Luniungu team we took to the Luniungu Secteur headquarters to train teachers there, as requested by the secteur chief. The next week, we took the others to Kikwit to lead the long-awaited teacher-training there. They all did a satisfactory job for a first time.

It is the first fulfillment of a dream we have long cherished, to have regional teams of literacy teacher-trainers working in the interior of the country. It will cut our high cost of training seminars in those places and enable us to respond to more invitations. It will enable us to saturate the Kwilu area with classes and teachers at the same time that our primary literacy team can move on to focus on other areas.

God be praised!