Offaly students ready for trip to Zambia

STUDENTS and teachers from Killina Presentation Secondary School have been travelling to Zambia, in Southern Africa, for over 10 years as part of an Immersion Project.

This year 10 students and three teachers will travel to Zambia for three weeks as part of another educational and cultural immersion experience.

To make this trip possible, we collectively raised €28,000 through a variety of fundraising events.

Among our efforts were several successful bake sales held in our school and at the Bridge Centre, Tullamore including a themed Valentine’s bake sale.

One of our main fundraising events was the fun 'Zoom to Zambia', where we spent a full day taking turns cycling a stationary bike at the Bridge Centre to symbolically cover the distance we will travel around Zambia.

We also spoke at our local churches and the community were very generous in their support. Additionally, the teachers and parents generously organised a Race Night, which was both a social and financial success.

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These events brought our school community together in a shared goal and demonstrated the power of teamwork and commitment. We will be forever grateful to anyone who participated or donated towards our fund.

Our Immersion Programme in Zambia will begin on June 2, where we will get a flight to Dubai which is where we will get our second flight to bring us to Lusaka, the capital city of Zambia.

We will be staying there for the first two nights. On the second day in Lusaka, we will visit the Barefeet Theatre and the national museum. From Lusaka, we will then take a bus to our second destination, Kaoma.

Kaoma is home to our Zambian partner school, Mahilo. During our time in Kaoma, we will go to their school where we will show some of our Irish culture to them and in return, they will teach us about Zambian culture.

We will be teaching the students the Irish language, wildlife and we will teach them to play the tin whistle and some dances. During our time in Zambia, we will also be attending mass, where we will sing our Irish songs that we have prepared for them. Whilst based in Kaoma, we will also be visiting other areas such as Kabanga and the Garden of Oneness.

Our third destination in Zambia is Mongu. In Mongu, we will be travelling to Malengwa, where we will visit the Cheshire Home.

The Cheshire Home is a boarding school that provides both education and medical care for babies, young children and teenagers with disabilities. We will visit them for a few days where we will work and play with them and give them donations that have been raised from the local community. Finally, on June 21 we travel back to Lusaka where we will depart for Dublin and arrive home the following day. We are very excited to share our experiences with the community when we return.

We want to extend a heartfelt thank you to all who have and continue to support our project and look forward to what promises to be a life changing experience.

The Killina Zambia Immersion Project GoFundMe page can be found at https://www.gofundme.com/f/zoom-to-zambia-2025 or by scanning the QR code below.

Any further donations are greatly appreciated!