Report from BHW Zambia Partnership Facilitator Following Visit

Key people: Doris and Grace Nkausu

Recent Events

Overview

The area is still having many issues of poverty. Doris tells us that there is still a lot of hopelessness in the area with a lack of jobs, early marriages, drunkenness and smoking being very prevalent. A lot of people have taken to smuggling maize into the Congo as they can achieve a good profit of 50 ZMK (US$4) per bag, but it is a risky business. Currently the main source of work for people is hand weeding the newly planted areas of forest but this will only last for the extent of the rainy season then will stop.

There are still many orphans and vulnerable children in the area that Doris has a heart for.

We met with Doris at the farm plot in Ndola. It has been a difficult couple of years for the family since the passing of Lemon.

I was truly encouraged by this visit. The first thing we noticed was the land - all of the land on the small farm plot has been planted this year, nothing has been wasted, which is the first time I have seen this in 13 years of coming here. The land has been used by family members to plant their own maize plus a field of 2 lima that has been planted by Doris, her mum and her sisters to help fund the orphans program. In addition, another lima is planted by the latest 10 trainees in Foundations for Farming under close supervision. There are fields of ground nuts, sweet potato and ocra as well. 

Orphans Program

The funding of orphans school requirements has been going well. All five orphans who sat Grade 12 exams last year passed their exams and two of these have work in the forestry.

There are now 20 orphans remaining in the program:
• Grade 12  -  5
• Grade 11  -  7
• Grade 10  -  8

This means that the last of this group of orphans will complete their schooling in 2021.

Doris is having very close contact with these young people. The orphans also come to help out in the maize field, giving her a chance to encourage and disciple them in life and about farming. As she says “at least some of these will be farmers if they cannot get jobs after finishing school”. Some of the other orphans who finished school earlier have managed to get jobs and are looking to save up for a college education.

The government has decided that if someone fails Grade 9 they have to go right back to Grade 6 and start again which is causing many people headaches as to what to do with children. Normally they just drop out of school. There is another option to do a year’s GCE training to re-sit exams but the cost is high at around 2000 ZMK (US$165).

There were three girl orphans who got pregnant in 2017; Prudence, Mwela and Elizabeth. After their babies were born they came back crying to Doris asking to be allowed back into the school program but Doris has said no. She has however been training them in farming so that these ones can earn enough to feed themselves and their babies.

Doris sees many other orphans in the community and is going to think and pray about how to help some of these little ones. 

Foundations for Farming Training

Last year 10 ladies were trained and we met with five of them to discuss the training; Jennifer Kabunda, Mavis Mofya, Ruth Mwela, Sanga Mpundi, Susan Kawfali. 

For many of these ladies their husband has either passed away or, as one said, “he does nothing but drink beer and sit”. They have the responsibility of looking after the needs of their families. Many of them even have 20 year old sons and daughters who come back home because they have nothing to do. They struggle to feed the family one meal per day.

They have between 1 and 2 lima of land each to farm on and currently they are getting 1 to 5 bags of maize in the field (a very poor yield at less than 1 ton per hectare). This season, after being trained, they planted groundnuts and beans on their own land to help restore the soil with legumes which will hopefully improve things for the following season.

They learnt about compost and God's blanket of mulch for the soil and all the work to prepare the field for planting. They are truly amazed at how the maize in the field they have planted on the farm looks with very big cobs and they are looking forward to the harvest.

Patience provided the fertilizer and seed for the plot and at harvest they will sell enough maize to repay Patience for the inputs so that the next group can do the same. The remainder of the maize will be distributed between all the ladies.

Next season all these ladies will farm on their own plots and Doris will visit them. They are requesting a loan program to buy seeds and fertilizer that will be repaid at harvest. Doris will visit them to ensure the fields are prepared with mulch and compost has been made before any inputs will be given as a loan.

Doris would also like to train another 10 people in farming for the next season and have them again plant a lima on her land.

Income Generation

They have managed to generate income both from the sale of maize and other produce from the orphans' field, plus the rental unit that was renovated last year.

The rental unit provides 270 ZMK (US$22) per month and they are putting that money aside to fund the refurbishment of the remaining two other structures in order to be able to rent them out. All the money received from these projects is placed into a mobile money account and kept separate.

It was humbling to talk through the farming budget with Doris and see that there was no request for printing and copying of manuals, she said “no of course, we can’t expect Bright Hope to pay for everything, we can use the money we have made to pay for this”. 

Personal Stories

Doris' Story

Doris is the first born of nine children with two brothers and six sisters. When she was born she lived in Ndola township where her dad Lemon was a house man for some ex-pat people.

They moved to GLO Bible College when the Honores (BHW's new partnership facilitators) were starting the facility and her father was involved in many things there, including outreaches into the community. After a period of long service with GLO Lemon had enough funds to purchase the current 3 ha plot where they still.

Her father Lemon started a church in the Sakanya village where they used to meet in a house church but then managed to build a building.

As a child Doris always had a heart for others. She tells the story of when someone came to the house asking for some salt and her parents said “sorry we have none” but Doris knew they had hidden some for the family so went and found it and gave it to the people.

Doris finished school when she was 15 years old at Grade 9 as at that stage her parents could not afford to send her to school any longer. She is thankful that at least by then she could read and write. She decided to start businesses to help her to live so sold goods, baking and vegetables from a roadside stall outside the house.

For a long time her family started to help out vulnerable orphans in any way that they could with small things that they could give them like soap etc. In 2005 Doris attended a Teen Missions course in Ndola for 2 years which taught her more about looking after the young people, and herself, that she didn’t need a husband but could be independent by using whatever she had. 

Doris wants to look after orphans because she has a heart that if people are suffering she should share in that suffering. When she hears orphans' stories of how life is for them it breaks her heart and she wants them to grow into the full knowledge of God.

She trains people in farming because she sees that God has given us land and water and we are to be faithful with it. To see the people trained, increasing yields and praising God for this is a great blessing to Doris.

Plans for the Future

The question is raised about what to do with the orphans program. The results of the current orphans truly shows a great result of mentoring and discipleship by Patience, as they are really impacting the lives of the children.

Doris has a heart for these children, wants to help more and would like to start adding some children. We discussed how this might look and if in fact this is the best thing, or is it to focus more on the empowerment of the families?

Doris is going to pray and consider what direction they should take next.

Prayer and Praise Points

1) Seeing the whole farm planted
2) The unity in the family, with all members stepping up to help each other

Comments

I sighted the book showing funds coming in and how it was all spent and everything is in great order. I did ask Doris to start another book for the income and expense they do out of the IGA account so we can see how this is working for them.

Orphans : With the numbers dropping Doris is going to provide a new budget for the amount of material needed to purchase for uniforms which is sent in June, and then the amount required to fund the last 15 orphans for the following year.

Farming: Doris has requested 2080 ZMK (US$175) to run a 2-day training course for the current 10 beneficiaries review, and another 10 new beneficiaries.

Loans: For the 10 current ladies Doris has requested 4,350 ZMK (US$360) as a loan for farming inputs which they will only receive if they have made compost, cleared land and dug pot holes when she visits their fields in August / Sept.