Report from BHW Zambia Partnership Facilitators Following Visit

Key person: Faidess Cheyasu

Recent Events

Orphans Support

The partnership is currently supporting ten children into school. The Zambian Government has removed school fees for students meaning the financial support now provides uniforms, shoes, shoe polish, Vaseline and a few other small things. There are seven students at secondary school and three in primary school.

The team gather the children together occasionally to eat, have bible teaching and encourage them.

We were encouraged to hear about the orphans who have gone through the programme and finished grade 12.  They are working in various local industries around Zambia. It is a very good example for the other local children in this community, of children they know being able to pass school and find themselves work. 

There are also some kids who have dropped out of school, even with the support, and are living lives that involve a lot of drinking and early marriages. 

Farming Training

In 2022 a Foundations for Farming training was conducted at GLO (ZAM19c) for several of the Zambian partnerships' key people. Faidess and Leonard from Kamatepa attended this training. 

When they returned, they tried to teach people about this new way of farming but found that people were not at all accepting of it. Leonard knew he would need to use this method to show people the difference that could be made in their maize.

This 2022/23 season he has used the Foundations for Farming method to grow a demo plot of maize. He has found that there is a big difference in the maize that is grown in this way, it is nice and green, and the cobs look big. The photo is of his maize field. We are so thankful that there is someone in this area who is willing to try these new methods and be a great example to others in the community.

Personal Stories

Beverley Mulunga 

Beverley is new to the programme. She is 18 years old and in grade 10 at Chingola Secondary School (the closest city to Kamatepa). When her parents died in 2015, she came to Kamatepa to live with her sister during the summer. 

During that time, she started to dig a field for peanuts to be able to buy herself some clothes and one of the families involved in the partnership saw what she was trying to do. She was then introduced to the leaders, and they were able to include her in the programme.

When she goes to school in Chingola she lives with her grandmother. Her grandmother supports her and five other children in the house by selling charcoal. 

Beverley loves Physical Education at school, especially playing netball. She would love to be a journalist when she grows up to be able to tell people’s stories. 

Prisca Kapecha 

Prisca thanks the Lord for this group of people who help her. She has lived with her grandparents since she was 2 months old. 

Her grandfather died just this year and now it has been very hard for her grandmother, who is not very well, to try and farm to support her.

Prisca lives in a mudbrick house with a grass roof. She eats two meals each day consisting of nshima – the local staple food made from maize. She helps her grandmother by getting water from the river and cooking.

The partnership has been able to help Prisca with her school uniform, shoes, pens, books, blankets, shoe polish, soap and toothpaste.

Prisca enjoys mathematics and Physical Education at school. She is in grade 7 and has 53 students in her class. 

She would like to be a police person so that she can arrest naughty people. 

Prisca thinks that Zambia will be ok in the future because of farming.

Steven Bwalya 

Steven has just started in the programme this year in 2023.  He is seven years old, and this is his first year of school. His teacher doesn’t always turn up at school and if they don’t come then he must return home. 

He loves playing football and running with his friends.

He lives with his mum, grandmother, and little brother (who he sometimes fights with).

Steven helps at home by getting water and sweeping.

Partnership's Influence within the Community

In a community like this there is a resistance to change. The new methods of farming that are being introduced have been met with reluctance but over time hopefully the example of Leonard’s plot of maize and continued use of the method will result in people being willing to try something new. 

The importance of that in our eyes is that a lot of people are losing money growing maize because they are not producing enough tonnes per hectare. The inputs for growing maize, especially fertilizer, have increased in cost hugely. There are ways of growing maize by using compost and chicken manure teas which mean that there would be less reliance on these inputs. We would love to see these sorts of communities thriving using great methods of farming.

Comments

It was great to see Leonard, who was an orphan who completed this programme, now returned to the village and trying to impact the area. He is a very bright young man who even went to the capital Lusaka to meet the president as a representative of the Chingola area youth.

We will keep the annual budget the same for now but will remain in touch with Faidess and Leonard regarding the farming trainings.