Forest landscape project fights deforestation in Eastern Province
Depleted forest at Eastern Girls Secondary School where the school has been harvesting fuelwood By Innocent Daka Smoke belches gently out into the sky from a makeshift kitchen where preparations of meals for pupils using firewood is underway at Magwero School of the blind in Chipata District. The inside walls have become pitch-black, darkened with accumulated soot of many years. Yet, in the midst of this smoke, choked but undaunted, the school-cook breaths hard while positioning logs of smoldering firewood under a big pot. School head teacher Moses Mwale said the electrical pots at the school broke down in 2014 and the school now has switched to using firewood for cooking, which is also expensive and scarce. Elsewhere at Eastern Girls Technical Secondary School, working in a smoky kitchen shelter to prepare three meals for 88 days each school term for about 370 pupils is also a daily ritual that another school-cook endures at the girls’ school. According to the ...