What does it look like when an investment pays off? Not in numbers, but in people, in young men and women who walked through the doors of Amos Youth Centre (AYC) full of potential. At AYC, the return on investment is measured in more than percentages; it’s the lives touched and transformed. Some of those lives have found their way back to where it all began. For Clement, Violet, Christine, and Kalaluka, graduation wasn’t an ending; it was a beginning.

The Read for Rose Special Education Program is celebrating seven years of transformative growth and impact. This blog is a reflection of seven years ago, when Febby Choombe started this transformative program.

Today, Read for Rose serves 41 students with diverse learning needs, from hearing and visual impairments to autism, Down Syndrome, and physical disabilities. As the program marks its 7th anniversary, it celebrates not just its growth but the lives it has transformed along the way.

Seven years ago, Susan began her journey at the Read for Rose Special Education Program. As a young girl with a hearing impairment, and due to the limited availability of special needs resources in her community, she had not yet developed literacy skills or a structured way to communicate. She was scared, isolated, and unsure of where her mother was taking her when they stepped through the doors of the Amos Youth Centre (AYC). Today, that girl is thriving. She now communicates fluently in Zambian Sign Language, writes her thoughts with confidence, knits beautiful doormats, and dreams of opening her own shop one day.

In Zambia, only a small minority of students have access to technology in education. For many students in communities like Kafue, a tablet is not a learning tool; it is an unfamiliar object, something seen from a distance but never held. The digital gap is real, and for children already navigating poverty, limited resources, and overcrowded classrooms, it widens every year.