Zambia Gold Honey GU student participants
The Zambia Gold Honey project began when ten Gonzaga students from the Comprehensive Leadership Program traveled to Zambia. Encouraged to build collaborative relationships within the community, they quickly developed hopes of bringing more opportunity to the region. After tasting pure African honey, students spent time with local bee farmers and the Zambezi Catholic Mission, exploring ways to provide a sustainable market for fair trade organic forest honey in the US. Since then, four interns travel each year to Zambia and work with the Zambia Gold Honey project. Zambia Gold Honey can be purchased on Gonzaga’s campus, at local retailers, or online at www.zambiagold.org.
The sales profits from the honey go directly back to the community, specifically to a school in Chilenga, Zambia. Currently the school in Chilenga holds two class sessions a day to accommodate the over eight hundred students in only nine classrooms. For these eight hundred students there are twenty-two teachers and six student teachers who, on average, make less than one dollar a day.
Over the next five years, the goal is to not only support the upkeep of the school but to make it a functional place of learning. Through the Zambia Gold Honey project, the leadership hopes to raise the capital to bring electricity to the school, finish a three classroom addition, and supplement the teacher salaries to keep the talented people working at Chilenga. See pictures and more information at: www.zambiagold.org.
The Zambia Gold Honey project was awarded a grant from the M.J. Murdock Charitable Trust to fund Social Entrepreneur Internships and was honored by the Jenzabar Foundation with a “Best in Class” award for its exceptional work in the areas of community service and humanitarianism.
Your support of the Comprehensive Leadership Program is always needed and appreciated. Give online at www.gonzaga.edu/makeagift.