Serenje Outreach for Children's Help
(SOCH)
Listen to 'Beacon of Light' composed for the SOCH orphanage in 2018, and sung by the 12 year old Australian composer...
Beacon of Light by James Gilbert September 2018
SASBJ (Beacon of Light - Single)
Our care for vulnerable children continues even when they leave SOCH
In 2024, some Primary School children will be boarding in our SOCH school hostel during the school term. During school holidays, these children will return to their parents and guardians.
Older children who have left SOCH will continue to be supported in their secondary education at boarding schools and local high schools through our provision of their fees and school uniforms. Other older children who have dropped out of school are offered the opportunity to learn carpentry skills onsite at SOCH.
For those who complete secondary school year successfully, we try to obtain sponsorship for them in universities and colleges since we don't have the fund capacity to support tertiary study. Here below are a few examples of how SOCH is helping children:
One of the girls in this old photo of SOCH orphanage children was (B),
In October 2022, (B) graduated as an Environmental Health Officer. She is the first female to graduate under SOCH care after the first male (G) graduated in 2021 as an IT teacher.
This poor little fellow in rags on the left is (I). He was unable to be cared for by his mother who entrusted him to us.
On the right is a later photo of (I) in his school uniform. He has now completed his secondary school studies.
On the left is (L) after she first arrived at SOCH orphanage as a young child - happily displaying her dinner!
On the right is (L) dressed in her school tracksuit. She achieved excellent exam results which enabled her to enter a Zambian boarding school to complete her education.
The young boy on the right is (M) who joined the SOCH orphanage in 2005, and consistently excelled at school.
(M) completed Grade 12 with distinctions in all his subjects. He gained a scholarship to study Computer Science at a Chinese University. and is due to graduate in 2024. The bulk of his costs (flights etc.) are being met through the generosity of a ZOA family whose son had travelled on a school trip to SOCH and met the young (M).
This young man (I) returned to Serenje in 2019 after spending a year in Australia where the Children First Foundation enabled him to have a life-changing medical operation for his leg, injured severely in an accident with fire when he was a child.
(I) achieved the highest examination grade in the local Serenje District, and was therefore able to gain entry to a Zambian boarding school.