Zambia, Africa
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Report Date: July 15, 2025
Key Person: Peter Chila
I met Peter at a café in Kabwe to discuss how this partnership through OM Zambia is going.
School
The school now has 75 students who come. There are three classes with three teachers.
There have been a number of short-term mission trips who come from the UK and USA to help in the school. Peter says these are a real blessing to them as they are mostly all trained and skilled people to help with the children. They connect very well with each other.
The feeding programme of breakfast and lunch is going well. It is well funded, and Peter finds this sometimes strange, that it is easy to find funding for food but not for the people, i.e. teachers, who are more important in his eyes.
One issue that Peter highlights, is the requirement for the school to go on breaks. He knows that teachers need breaks, and they get one month in April, August and September. The issue comes when the children come back, and they have not been fed well or looked after at all. It takes a few weeks to get them back to the level they were at before the break.
More work needs to be done to train the guardians.
Church Trainings
As well as training the church in Zambia, they have been going to Tanzania (Darussalam) and DR Congo (Lubumbashi). They trained approximately 100 leaders in these two places about how to look after disabled people and to be disabled friendly. In Tanzania they had many Maisi people who came for training as there is a lot of disabled people in that people group.
In the areas they train there are OM people who remain to facilitate training follow-ups and communicate any needs back to Peter.
Empowerment
Peter has been able to identify five people who have been helped with a small capital fund to increase their ability to support themselves. Examples of the businesses are a barbershop, grocery shop, phone fixing, and printing.
Peter's process to help people is to get to know them and look and see what interests they have. Then to see that they have already started something, they know how to run that business, and that they are really trying to make the business work. They then discuss the capital they are currently using and see if there is an option to identify whether a capital injection will help grow the business.
One of the men Peter helped, he just took him to Lusaka to see the larger wholesalers. The man was amazed at being able to buy goods in bulk for much cheaper prices that he could then sell for greater margins.
Innocent Chabala has been helped through four years of Teachers College. He is in a wheelchair and is a double amputee but is so thankful for how Bethesda helped him that he wants to come and be a teacher there when he is qualified.
Yande, who is in a wheelchair, has been successfully integrated into a government school. It was very hard for her at the start, and she did not want to go because of the stigma and hassles she got but she has done very well, being a very intelligent girl. Her desire is to become a doctor so she can help disabled people.
Peter says that there are many more who would benefit from having help to be empowered.
Many church leaders are confessing that they have left this people group out of their thinking and the church activities. There is a long way to go but they are starting to see the culture change.
Wheelchair Camp
In August they will hold their annual wheelchair camp. There are over 500 people booked to come from Zambia, Zimbabwe, Uganda and Tanzania. They have some guest speakers coming from the UK and USA. The camp will include many sports games, lectures and workshops to encourage the people to be the best they can be, and to introduce them to the love of Christ.
In Kasama province where OM has some land, they have been coordinating people to produce food on the farm that they can bring to the camp to reduce the costs of food. Some are also bringing chickens and goats.
Teachers are in short supply. They currently have just three but really need six plus some other helpers. They had a head teacher who was doing very well but he got placed in a government school which is a fully paid role whereas at Bethesda the teachers are more on an “appreciation” funding, receiving probably around a third of what government schoolteachers get. Sadly, this teacher did not even tell them but just failed to show up for work.
Finding teachers who have the heart and also can show up with getting not much pay is a real struggle.
They really need to pay US$250 to $300 per month to the teachers but the currently level they can afford is US$100 per month.
Peter likes the current teachers a lot. They are very open to him about their frustrations, so they are able to talk things through. He talks with them about their passions and what is God calling them to do. Challenges always can bring us closer to God if we let them.
Peter is an amazing guy and being disabled himself I think has given him a great heart for this ministry. Seeing them care for these kids is amazing and such a tough job.
I just think they need more funds, and to see people empowered would be a great start. I will recommend to the BHW Executive that we increase their annual budget and also include some additional funds to help them empower people to be self-sustaining.
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