Report from BHW Zambia Partnership Facilitator Following Visit

Key person: Steven Daka

Recent Events

Personal

Rosemary’s health has been ok, but she has issues with swollen legs meaning she could not travel to Ndola for the Zambia partner conference.

The last three years have seen lockdown issues with Covid that affected them mainly by the local churches not being allowed to meet, with fear of beatings from police if they did. 

Orphans Programme

The partnership continues to sponsor 18 orphans into school covering the costs of books, shoes, uniforms, groceries, and some boarding school fees.

There are also 18 orphans that have finished Grade 12 who are doing well at finding work, either teachers, working in Chinese run businesses or subsistence farming.

Every month Steven and Rosemary get all the vulnerable orphans to come to Rosemary’s house for some food and encouragement in God's word. 

Pig Rearing Programme

This was started about four years ago, with the plan to give a family a female pig that would then produce a litter for the family to grow on after giving back one female from the litter. Unfortunately, Steven found the families were not serious enough to provide a decent fenced area and enough food for the pigs, so all the ones that they gave out either died of disease or went missing. 

The partnership still has some pigs remaining that they will keep until ready for sale, and then use the funds to sustain the partnership.

Gardening Training Programme

Over the last two years Steven has run some gardening trainings for six families who were caring for vulnerable orphans in the community. They ran a five-day training each year for the participants, focusing on potholing, using manure and preparation of nursery beds for seedling production.

After training they were given a loan of 300 ZMW in 2021 and 700 ZMW in 2022 in the form of seeds, fertilizer, and medicine. The crops focused on were tomatoes and rape.

The vegetables grew well, although there was an issue of watering becoming more difficult in the dry season as the wells in the area were dying up. In the end the families did just ok.

Ideas for the Future

Soybeans

In conjunction with Share Africa Zambia, a non-profit Christian based company (shareafricazambia.com), Steven and 15 other members of the local church were trained in how to grow soybeans. They were then each given 20kg of Kafue soybean seed and one bottle of weed killer as a loan to be repaid upon harvest with 200kg of the crop.

Steven managed to harvest 14 x 50kg bags from his 2 acres which he says was below par, due to being the first time following new methods. Even still, he managed to sell 500kg at 10 ZMW per kg giving him 5,000 ZMW (US$315) profit.

Now that he is registered with the company, he can buy more seeds and weed killer, so he wants to run a programme next year that includes eight families in the community who are caring for orphans on Chifundo’s programme. This will require purchasing 100 kg of seed and three bottles of weed killer, that he will distribute to the families as loans repaid on harvest through soybeans that he will then on sell to create funds for the partnership. The cost of purchasing the seed and weed spray along with running the training programme is 6,000 ZMW (US$375). 

Fishpond

Steven has begun to dig a fishpond for the project to try and raise funds for self-sustainability. Due to a lack of time he unfortunately failed to finish before the rains came so the project has not yet started. He is requesting a capital top-up of 4,500 ZMW (US$290) to kick start this programme. The pond is very close to Rosemary’s house, and there is a stream that has run every dry season that feeds the pond. It will be dug with an inlet and outlet.

The market for the fish is the villages close by as there is no other fishpond in the area. 

Comments

We talked with Steven at GLO Ndola while he was there for the Bright Hope partners' conference and to attend the Foundations for Farming course there. Steven has never been trained in a Foundations for Farming course and has previously just used the knowledge he gained from watching his late father Lonard Daka, so we are interested to see how attending a full training will benefit him in his farming and teaching of others.

We viewed the account records that Steven has kept for the past three years, and all appears to be in order.