The school was founded in 2016 by Terry Wamundila and Jennifer Peeters.
The following people are working at Lotus Private School at the moment:
Director Lotus Private School
Jennifer Peeters is since opening in 2018 the director of the school. This means she runs the daily tasks in and around the school as well as being the one responsible for the finances and administration. Besides this, she is the OVC coordinator which means she arranges the things needed for the OVC pupils and, in consultation with the OVC coordinator in the Netherlands, decides who is allowed in the program. Furthermore, she is the representative of the Board from our Dutch counterpart ‘Vrienden van Lotus’ (translated as Friends of Lotus).
Jennifer was born and bred in the Netherlands on a Winter day in 1988. As a young girl she enjoyed the family holidays the most and it saddened her to return to the Netherlands every time. When she just turned 20 she flew to New Zealand with her father to visit family and travel around. The seed planted in her head years ago, became now more than that. The Netherlands wouldn’t be her forever home. Through internships, city trips, backpacking journeys, she returned to Zambia in 2014 and decided to stay.
At the moment she lives in a small house near the school between the Zambians. Where she might have had a bigger house, more money on the bank and better access to the first necessities of life if she would have stayed in the Netherlands, life in Zambia has made her feel richer and happier in every way.
Teachers Lotus Private School
Besides the director, there are also six teachers found at Lotus Private School, who all live in Mpongwe. Some of them are with us from the start!
Teacher Monica is responsible for the preschool class, while teacher Karen takes care of the Grade 1 class. Teacher Patricadius is found in Grade 2, while teacher Robbinson is the caretaker of Grade 3. Grade 4 is the responsibility of teacher Prisca and teacher Simon is teaching the pupils of the combination class, Grade 5 and 6.
A photo of our team of teachers will follow soon!
Board Vrienden van Lotus charity
As mentioned above, Jennifer is not doing this all by herself. When she went back to the Netherlands in 2017, she asked people she knew if they would like to establish a board. In this way, funds would be in one place and everything would be more organised considering the OVC program and the building of new structures. The board has made some changes since that time, but now has five members who put a lot of effort and time in the charity and the school, completely voluntarily.
The Board consists of five people who all have their own tasks:
Willy Maas (chairwoman)
Hans Karel (treasurer)
Jolanda Maas (secretary)
Monique van Neerven (OVC coordinator/member)
Thea van Bavel (member)