UN’S SDGS ARE EQUALIZER AND LIBERATOR, SAYS ZAMBIAN EX-TEACHER ROSEMARY CHANDA MUMBI
Rosemary Chanda Mumbi aged 82, is a widow, a mother of five grown children and a grandmother of ten, five boys and five girls.
STORY BY MOSES WALUBITA IN LUSAKA, ZAMBIA,
Rosemary Mumbi runs a Christian community school in one of Lusaka’s squatter compounds.
From two pupils at inception to 2,000 have passed through the school which has sent out into different career paths nearly 105 ‘O’ Level students who have graduated.
Rosemary, a retired teacher (though she is still teaching at her school), shares inspiring stories of her life.
For example, when Northern Rhodesia (now Zambia) was preparing for Independence, she overheard a very familiar conversation between two white colonialists who said: “This country will go to the dogs if we (Europeans) lost the elections.”
It did not surprise young Rosemary because those were the usual sentiments among the white population, that blacks had neither education nor the intelligence to govern themselves.
She set out to help change the narrative through education for the indigenous Zambian.
Her whole life’s formal Education was done under colonial rule.
To her shock one day returning home for a school vacation, Rosemary (then aged 15 years), had to be run out of the village like a thief by her mother when news broke out that she was to be married off to a 40-year-old man as per tradition.
The man had already built a hut in the village.
Rosemary’s mother preferred she continued with education.
Rosemary has been a secondary school teacher since January 1964, the year Zambia gained her Independence from British Colonial Rule.
Rosemary made a serious commitment to God and herself that she should stand as a role model by successfully completing her education.
She did this in December 1963. Because education is an equalizer, she chose to become a teacher.
Education is the only tool to achieving the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (UNSDGs).
Her 58 years’ of teaching has made her realize that education is matter of either life or death for girls.
As to how education fits into SDGs, Rosemary believes they are the equalizer, liberator and a promoter from one level of understanding to another level.
Because of her education, Rosemary was able to represent Zambia at Independence on Saturday 24th October, 1964.
She was in Independence Stadium in capital city when the British flag was lowered down for the last time and the new Zambia National Flag went up and seeing the founding father Dr. Kenneth David Buchizya Kaunda sworn in as Republic’s first President.
Rosemary’s school started in 2003 without a budget in a small rented room that neither had running water nor electricity. Forty students have finished their tertiary education in 2022.
Support from well-wishers in Zambia and abroad is big.
Rosemary Chanda Mumbi aged 82, is a widow, a mother of five grown children and a grandmother of ten, five boys and five girls.
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Author, Moses S. Walubita, is a seasoned Zambian Journalist and Media Specialist in the capital city Lusaka.
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