Chilenje House, the small home in Lusaka's Chilenje township where Kenneth Kaunda lived in the years before Independence, is a national monument that most people pass without a second look. During this year's 62nd Independence celebrations it hosted a schools debate, and Zambia Monitor reported on Saturday 31 October that the debate has had an unexpected result: learners from Kamwala Secondary School and Libala Stage 3 Secondary School have been offered an educational exchange programme in Uganda by a visiting Ugandan delegation that watched them argue.
The offer came from the Afrika Mashariki Fest Group, whose chief executive, Ronex Kisembo Tendo, is also a member of the Uganda Bikers Association, which was in Lusaka for the celebrations. Tendo said the delegation would work with the National Heritage Conservation Commission and the Zambian government to arrange the exchange, that Uganda Airlines' flights to Lusaka made the travel practical, and that the aim was to expose the learners to different experiences, broaden their perspectives and strengthen relations between the two countries by investing in young people's intellectual development. Zambia Monitor's report does not name the learners, give the motion they debated or say how long the exchange would last or who would pay for it.
Lemons, and what a monument is for
The commission's executive director, Kagosi Mwamulowe, was candid about how the visit began. The bikers' motorcycles had raised a concern about noise at the monument, he said, and the commission chose to turn the complaint into an opportunity; if you have a lemon, he said, you make lemonade. The offer, in his account, showed that heritage sites can serve education, cultural exchange and tourism rather than only conservation, and that looking after them should include community participation and sustainable development.
Among the visitors was Jimmy Akena Obote, a son of Uganda's former president Milton Obote, who told the gathering that Africa's founding leaders had laid important foundations with few resources and that their sacrifices and vision should keep inspiring work on education, nutrition and housing. The setting made the point for him: Chilenje House is where the man who became Zambia's first president lived while the country he would lead was still being argued into being. For two schools from a few kilometres away, a debate there has become a ticket north.
The exchange's dates, the number of learners involved and the arrangements with the Ministry of Education were not reported. Zambia Monitor's account is, so far, the only report of the offer.
Sources: Zambia Monitor, “Zambian school learners win Uganda exchange opportunity after Independence debate” (31 Oct 2026).