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Duncan in the Science lab at FDSS with a student. Prizes for pupils in ZambiaDuncan Taylor Duncan Taylor taught in Macha, Zambia at Frances Davidson Secondary School, a Global Family group-sponsored project, in 2003-2004. He was part of MCC's Learning and Serving Together (SALT) program. These are excerpts from accounts of his experience. This term I tried to encourage my pupils to come to classes on time and in the proper uniform by keeping track of these every day and then having a drawing at the end of the week for everyone who had a perfect record for the week. The prize had been their choice of a Coke, Sprite or Fanta. By the end of the term I had changed the prize to 2,000 kwacha, enough to buy a drink or a notebook and pen. Then, on the last full week of classes we had the "Champions League Draw," where everyone who had ever qualified for the weekly draws was put in and the winner received a brand new 20,000 kwacha bill, worth about $6 Cdn./$4.40 U.S. As I hoped, it generated a fair amount of excitement, and we had the acting headmaster come as the guest of honor to pull the winning name. The winner turned out to be one of the students who had previously asked me to help him get on the Global Family sponsorship program because he was having difficulty finding money to pay school fees. I was glad he had won. The next day the student came to ask if I had been able to get him on the sponsorship program. When I told him that I hadn't because there were no more spots available, he asked if he should just pay what he had toward the term's fees. That was 20,000 kwacha — exactly what he had won the day before. I'm beginning to put the Global Family sponsor children and the reality of Macha together. For some reason, those things at home just never seemed real — the Global Family contribution didn't seem like a lot; could it really help? But so many struggle so hard to find that much here.
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