Report from BHW Zambia Partnership Facilitator Following Visit

Key person: Charles Chibale

Recent Events

Personal

Charles and Janet have built a house in Samfya where they stay for half their time. They still also live in Kaishe as that is where all their farming activities are. Being in Samfya has enabled Charles to attend the theological diploma classes from Ndola, learning mostly online with better internet in Samfya.

Charles' health has not been great with some sickness and a problem with his arm meaning he has no strength.

His heart is still there for the area of Kaishe. He is the manager of the local football team and has been elected as the chairperson of the Government Community Development Group, a government initiative to provide funds for projects that are locally driven. 

Flood Relief

In 2019 severe floods hit the area. It affected many people very badly, meaning many were left without housing. The funds that Bright Hope World sent enabled many bags of cement to be purchased, which enabled eight families to rebuild their houses.

The skills centre was also affected with the carpentry workshop being destroyed in the floods. 

Skills Centre

At present the skills centre is being used as accommodation for teachers at the local primary school. This was to meet a request from the school to provide accommodation for the new teachers that had arrived, and the school then provided a classroom for the preschool in return.

Preschool

The preschool this year has 38 pupils with one teacher and one helper. The programme provides food every day for the pupils. Currently they are holding the lessons in a classroom at the local primary school.

This will be the last year of the preschool programme as the government has now decreed that all primary schools must run a free preschool for the communities, meaning there will be no need.

Farming Trainings

Charles has been continuing to run farming courses for the local people teaching Foundations for Farming, but the uptake has been low due to a mindset of being at fishing camps until the yearly fishing bans start in December. This means all the farming programmes are not on time.

Each year 30 people are trained and provided with food at the course. The courses are for one week, run over three terms. Term one they teach Entrepreneurship, term two Gardening, and Term three Maize and Cassava Cropping. The photo is of the last training course.

The cost of fertilizer in Zambia has become very expensive with one bag of Urea or D compound costing up to 1,000 ZMK (US$60). This makes it more important to teach soil fertility with compost and mulching.

Charles' own farm that he uses as a demonstration plot produced 25 x 50kg bags of maize this year, which is 5 ton per hectare. A very good result compared to the normal yield of 1 ton per hectare for other farmers in the area. Charles says that five other farmers in the area who were trained have also done well.  

Current Issues and Challenges

The current challenge is to do with the lack of uptake in the new farming methods once trained. This is mainly due to the fishing camps, plus the high cost of inputs for farming.

Plans for the Future

Charles has a few plans for the partnership that will require him to present some proposals going forward.

Oil Press

The idea is to train farmers in cropping soyabeans and sunflowers that can be purchased by the partnership and turned into oil. This will require investment to purchase a commercial oil press. Normally for sunflowers they can press 20% oil, and then bottle it for sale in the village. There is currently a shortage of oil in the district, so the market is good. 

Orphans

There has been a request to start funding vulnerable orphans again, potentially this could happen out of the profits from the oil press.

Skills Centre

Charles is aiming to restart the skills centre but this time he wants to get the centre accredited by the government so official certificates can be given to the students who complete the courses.

Comments

Currently we are waiting for Charles to send through the proposals as mentioned.