Report from BHW Zambia Partnership Facilitator

I called Barnabas to discuss the partnership and what has been happening over the last year. He discussed being unsure re the effects of Covid due to a lack of information, but financially people are struggling with increasing food prices and lockdowns closing markets and businesses being the main cause.

CORAC has seen the need for people to be assisted significantly increasing due to these issues.

Recent Events

Welfare Assistance

In January 2022 the partnership supported 15 families with 100ZMK (US$6) each and 15kg of maize grain as a food supplement. This was followed up in July 2022 with another 19 families supported with 100ZMK each family and 20kg of maize grain. The families were considered eligible for the assistance depending on circumstances of age and their ability to create income.

The photo is of an aged lady who stays with her grandson who is a miner and gets very little piece work to support the family. She said, “thanks for your assistance, but it is too little per month and please add more”. 

Education Support

32 children are currently on the programme with 21 secondary school and 11 primary school children receiving support. The government has declared that education is now free in Zambia in terms of school fees, but students still have the challenge of other school requirements that have doubled in price such as transport (that was 10ZMK a day but now it is 20ZMK a day), uniforms, books, and shoes that have also doubled in price.

To be more sustainable they plan to interact with the guardians of the orphan beneficiaries to see how best they can meet the requirements by giving them business and farming loans.

Higher Education Loans

CORAC has been providing some exceptional student beneficiaries of the school programme with loans to help them further into higher education. They have currently completed phase one where the first three beneficiaries helped have completed their education and have now gained employment. As these three repay their loans, the funds will be used to help other beneficiaries in the same programme.

Two beneficiaries are employed as teachers and the other is employed in a chemical plant.

Kennedy (photo right) is the last in phase one to complete his primary school diploma with the University of Zambia in conjunction with Mansa College Education.

Kennedy says “First and foremost I would like to thank the organization of CORAC for supporting me financially from 2018 to 2021 to complete my training. I am now doing volunteer work at Kaombe Primary School to gain experience and land a job”.

CORAC has received 2,000ZMK (US$117) as a part repayment from Moses, one of the teachers.

Farming Loans 

For the 2021 to 2022 season (planting in November and harvest in July) there were six families who received farming inputs as loans. They each received 65kg of D compound fertilizer, 50kg urea fertilizer and 5kg of maize seed. These inputs enable a family to plant 1 lima (50m x 50m) of maize for the season.

One beneficiary, Mary, has finished harvesting and packed 15 bags of maize weighing 70kg each. This is a great result from a lima being just over 4 ton per hectare equivalent which is four times the average yield from a subsistence Zambian farmer.

The other farmers have currently not finished shelling and packing the maize.

Small Business Loans

Seven families are on the programme, having added two families from the previous year due to good loan repayments and interest collected. The five families who previously repaid received 600ZMK (US$35) this year and the two new families received 500ZMK (US$29) each.

Medium Business Loans

Four beneficiaries are on the programme and received 2,000ZMK (US$117) each. Barnabas' wife Jane helped to empower one beneficiary into cassava processing as a business and she sells the powder at the local Chiwempala market. The lady is very happy and says the business is very good, enabling her to support her family's food and education requirements. 

Comments

This report was written from the conversation with Barnabas and some interaction via WhatsApp. In late July I will be visiting the partnership to interview more beneficiaries and determine how the various programmes are impacting the community.

It is great to see the farming and business programmes starting to take effect with families.