Welcome to the Mechanics For Africa Website.
Please make every effort to attend the fundraising concert on 12th November in Shackleford, Surrey:
This was a fantastic event! Thanks to the organisers, singers and musicians for providing a wonderful evening's entertainment, and for raising a substantial amount for MFA.
Please see our latest newsletter by clicking the "Newsletters" tab on the left, and scrolling to the bottom. October 2011 newsletter to be added very soon.
If you wish to find out about the application procedure, please click the "Applying" button to the left.
We are pleased to announce that our new video is now available for viewing on You Tube. Please click HERE to follow this link. If your internet connection is too slow to see this, or if you would prefer to have your own hard copy of the DVD, please email me, charlie@mfazambia.com and I can arrange to send one to you.
Also, have a look at the newly updated "Watt 4!" page to see some pics of our life in Ndola.
Welcome!
This
is the entrance to MFAZ college:
Seasons don’t change fast here, but we do love it when the rains stop and slowly the trees, grass and everything else turns brown. Of course with that comes the fires, the dust and lovely clear starry nights. Our climate is of summer rainfall (southern hemisphere, so summer is approximately October to February) and with a dry and cloudless winter. That makes winter days beautiful, sunny and warm, and nights chilly, even sometimes downright cold!
Life here in Ndola has always been without a dull moment. Things have changed like the rest of the world; the recession has hit copper prices and with that has come job losses. We sadly said goodbye to many of our friends.
Our students did well in their December 2008 City & Guilds exams. Here are the final results of the total of 122 papers that they sat:
· 13 passes,
· 45 credits,
· 64 distinctions, and
·
Not one fail !!
Graduation day is always a day of great celebration. It is a happy and vibrant day with lots of smiles, dancing, flowers, gifts and singing:
Once again we are happy to be able to report a 100% success rate in 2009 exams. Please have a look at the March 2010 newsletter to see photos of the Graduation Ceremony of February 2010.
We do hope that as things get better with copper prices starting to climb slowly, that job opportunities will be there for our graduates. We hope and pray that they will all be working and fulfilling their dreams of being mechanics.
Life in action
So what is going on at MFAZ? Well, have a look and see:
Second year students hands-on experience in the workshop.
Each year we grow our own crops as part of the Life Skills course, Emmanuel Sikaundi training them in agriculture. This year we harvested 6 large sacks of maize from our gardens (maize is the staple diet of the people of Zambia).
Emmanuel shows off the maize that students have grown just before harvest:
In the classroom, Charlie is teaching mechanics theory to the second year students. (In this case, breakerless ignition trigger signal generation using an inductive pick-up - for those visitors to this page who were wondering!! - CW):
Fanwell (our head Mechanic and Workshop Manager) and Emmanuel (Assistant Administrator and Agriculture Lecturer) a few minutes before Graduation:
And so each new day brings many blessings and many challenges to the life of MFAZ students and staff. We thank God for His rich provision for each day.
For more information about MFAZ please visit the other pages on our website.
For Charlie and Sharonne, or any MFA or MFAZ business in Zambia, the address is:
PO Box 250016, Ndola, Zambia
Phone: + 260 (0)212 671419
Cell: + 260 (0)966 878381 or + 260 (0)966 742670
E-Mail: charlie@mfazambia.com
"Mechanics for Africa", or MFA, is a UK charity, number 1086333.
"Mechanics for Africa (Zambia)", or MFAZ, is a registered Charitable Trust in Zambia.
Patron: The Rt. Hon. Baroness Virginia
Bottomley of Nettlestone, DL.
Site updated 11th December 2011