Over 500 students at Chigamane are provided with a nutritional porridge every day. For some families, this is the difference to keep food insecurity at bay. Studies show that school lunch leads to great long term outcomes for overcoming poverty.

Teachers at Chigamane Primary school live in town and have a long commute to reach work by minibus, cutting into their already modest incomes. Onsite housing can relieve the burden of time and expense for our dedicated teachers. Each house costs around $1,568. We have not been able to build any teacher houses as yet. Donations to support this initiative are welcome.

Chigamane Primary School has kept a garden for years where the students learn about agriculture and parents and students alike benefit from vegetable produce. By selling excess harvest, the school manages a small fund for unexpected costs and also to buy seeds and other inputs for the next year. Santorini’s footprints project helped put capital improvements in place - shade cloth and watering cans - to allow for year round growing!

Many students at Chigamane school have lost their parents or due to other family challenges are being raised by grandparents or other relatives. It is often very hard for these families to afford basic goods for children to study such as backpacks, soap and shoes. To ensure that orphan children are registered for school and do not drop out, we provide a “kit” or a backpack full of critical items so all children can access schooling! The model we follow in the Footprints collaboration is consistent with the SAKs (school access kits) program ParCo runs in other neighborhoods.

Everywhere in the world, school children need pencils, paper and crayons and teachers need red and blue pens, chalk and markers. Chigamane Primary school is no exception. We encourage guests to bring these items with them on holiday to share with the school.