Report from BHW Zambia Partnership Facilitator Following Visit

Key people: Rosemary Daka and Stephen Daka

Recent Events

Leadership

Stephen went to the OM Discipleship Course (ZAM13) in Kabwe in 2017. He says that he wanted to go there because since his dad died the local churches had been slipping because they didn’t have anyone who had a good education in the things of God. During this course he learnt a lot about himself and some areas he needed to change, especially around his treating of his wife and family.

On his return it was a bit hard to be accepted by the local churches. There is one main church for CMML and five other branches that Lonard had planted. Now in the third year the churches are accepting him as they have seen his commitment to the word of God and how he has been teaching them. He is trying to move the churches out of their comfort zone to start evangelism and plant other churches. “We have become too comfortable” he says.

He is also helping in Chipata town where he lives. Lameck, an OM missionary, has a ministry for Muslim people and Stephen has been helping out wherever he can in this. 

He is funding himself by a shop at his house selling goods, and farming with Rosemary. The family also has oxen and a rippa that they are able to hire out in the farming season to prepare people's fields.

Peter Banda
Peter is the pastor of the central CMML church in the village where Chifundo is. He is a very good farmer and supports himself through this. In 2017 he decided that the church should have a field that the members could work in which would help provide for the needs of the vulnerable so they planted a field of maize, 70m x 70m. Each week the members would come to work in the field. The harvest was 30 x 90kg bags of maize grain, being about 5.4 tons to the hectare which is a very good yield. 

Peter is very happy to be working with Stephen and sees the benefit of the training that Stephen had. 

Orphans Program

There are now 18 orphans on the program who receive school fees, uniforms and other school requirements. They have seven in secondary school and 11 in primary school. There are many others that still need help to go to school.

Two of the orphans who completed grade 12 have gone on to college to study teachers training. Abraham Phiri has just completed and is waiting for placement to a job. Lazarus Daka is in his third year and has been struggling to pay his fees but has been farming to raise funds for himself.

Another, Annia Phiri, finished grade 12 with good results last year and has now moved to Lusaka to be with her sister to get some piece work to start saving for college.

Farming

The rains in the area this year have been very good, in fact in March they had a flood which has caused a lot of damage to the crops. People who planted early have got a reasonable crop but those who planted late have very little.

Rosemary trained 10 people in maize farming in 2018 but found they were not very serious about it. The main reason is a lack of market. Their mindset is that they are happy to farm for their own consumption but do not see the point in having extra to sell.

There are also a number of other companies who are making contracts with people to farm other products such as tobacco, groundnuts, cotton and even goats. People have to pay a small fee to join the group, they are then given seed and inputs, and that loan is repayed at harvest. For instance for groundnuts they have to give the first 40kg to the company to repay the loan, then the company buys the remainder. This does ensure a market although the company has the right to set the price at the time of harvest.

This year Rosemary and Stephen have worked together to plant maize, cotton, groundnuts and soybeans to help support the family. The maize that was planted in early December looks great but later plantings don’t look good at all. The cotton has also failed due to the heavy rains and flooding but the groundnuts and soybeans are looking ok for a harvest.

Pig Rearing Program

They were thinking that they needed to start some sort of program to help support and empower families of orphans to supply their own needs so they have decided to start a pig rearing program. They have purchased two female pigs for 200 ZMK (US$17) each and have kept them for four months so far. The plan is to get a good breed going and each female to go with a male with the aim to have around 10 piglets in the litter. They will then give out a pig to a vulnerable family who will keep them and start their own piggery. When those pigs have a litter, the family will give two pigs back to Chifundo who will then pass them onto the next family.

They feed the pigs with maize bran and water, 20g per pig twice a day. A 50 kg sack costs 40 ZMK. They add some vegetables from the gardens to help supplement. The pigs need vaccines three times per year and they see this as the key risk. For each family given a pig they will monitor them and make sure the vaccines are applied. There is a request to help fund these vaccines.

Personal Stories

Theresa Zulu

Theresa is 17 years old and is in grade 9 at Ntwela Mid Basic School. She lives with her grandparents who are 65 years old and farm a small field of maize, groundnuts and sunflower to help support themselves, but they are too old!

Her father passed away when she was little and her mother remarried a man and moved away with him. She returns very occasionally to see the children.

Theresa, who is being very shy, says she likes school because one day it will help her get a job and it helps her to read.

She occasionally attends the CMML church and goes to the youth group where they help her learn how the youth can impact society for the better.

She says she has no problems or challenges living in this village.

Abraham Phiri

Abraham is 26 years old and finished grade 12 in 2011. His dad has passed away so he was living with his uncle thoughout his schooling. He had a passion for becoming a teacher, he likes to care for children and teach them about life, especially the little ones.

He and his family had no funds to send him to college so he started farming and doing some piece work. Finally in 2016 he managed to save enough funds to go to teachers training college. He completed the first two years but then ran out of money so he had to pause for some time in 2018. He is back at college now but currently on practical placement. He still has a balance to pay to complete this year.

Practical placement means he joins a teacher in a class for about a month as they observe and train him, then they let him loose for the remaining two months to teach some subjects in the class.

A first year teacher receives about 4,000 to 5,000 ZMK (US$330-$415) per month as a salary. Once he completes his training he will need to wait to get a placement by the government and that could be anywhere in Zambia.

He is very thankful for the help to finish school. 

Ideas for the Future

• Look at helping with the pig empowerment project
• Help fund Stephen to go back to OM for the Missions course
• Fix the motorbike that was Lonard’s so Stephen can use it to visit Rosemary and the five church branches

Prayer and Praise Points

Praise for the team thinking about how to empower families and setting up the pig farming project

Comments

Stephen is going to find out some more about the cost of vaccines for the pigs and come back to us. He is also going to obtain a quote to fix the motorbike. It was running a year ago but now needs some maintenance.

The accounts were sighted and everything is in order here. 

Rosemary and Stephen are pretty close and with her other daughter Mercy they are working well together.