Partnership Overview

The team at GLO Bible College realised there was a need to re-evaluate the way the church dealt with young people and have a desire not only to impact the local youth in their area but also to empower churches all over Zambia in their ministry to young people. "Equipping tomorrow's leaders today".

GLO runs various components that are all aimed at impacting the youth of Africa through the local church:
- local programmes for youth in the community include extra school lessons, sports teams, skills (tailoring, farming, baking), and mentoring
- advocacy for the local health clinic
- overseeing a youth development programme - "Youth Friendly Corner"
- GAP year programme, a six-month development programme for young adults
- church based training for leadership
- advanced leaders courses run from the Bible College
- youth camps held in many different areas around Zambia

This partnership provides financial support for the various programmes they run. The GAP year is funded by many students being able to pay full fees while there is a scholarship programme to help some youth from poorer areas attend. Funds are also sent to help with staff support.  

GLO has been looking for ways to help fund the Bible College activities and in 2012 was helped to install a chicken run for income generation for staff support. They have also produced a youth magazine for sale, have rented out the facility, and used some leadership training programmes for commercial enterprises.

History Of Partnership

Visiting churches, schools and other places young people hang out, highlighted to the GLO team the number of issues the youth in Zambia are facing.  The schooling provided by the government is inadequate. Most classes have up to 70 pupils and often the teachers turn up drunk. Most children have a dream of what they want to be but they feel it is futile to dream because they think they have no way of reaching their goals. There is a mind-set of poverty that is difficult for them to break free of. In addition, often girls are looking for security and love in the wrong places. They think that getting married will provide them with security but often it does not as the boy they aim to marry has no means of support, or isn’t serious. Many girls have teenage pregnancies, which creates a further cycle of poverty for the children. There is not much for the youth to do to entertain themselves and this is one of the reasons for the teenage pregnancies.

GLO aims to address these problems in a variety of ways through the various courses and programmes that they run. However, all these programmes are just a vehicle for the GLO team to get alongside many youth, disciple them for Christ and help to change mind-sets that are causing their current behaviour. They are also seeking to mentor the children with GLO students and other local church volunteers being assigned to a few children each year to spend quality time with them. 

The GLO Alive team is also involved in decentralizing the youth work to other parts of Zambia. They have travelled to Northern and Luapula provinces to run leadership empowerment seminars and youth camps in those regions. In Luapula they are working with Samfya Bible School to develop leaders who will engage with the young people and meet their needs holistically. 

Beneficiaries

These are wide and varied:
- youth in the community who are impacted by the programmes
- students of the GAP year course
- churches who receive the church based leadership training
- staff who receive support
- Zambian youth who come to the youth camps 

What We Like About The Partnership

1) The GLO team has a real passion for the youth of Zambia, both in their local community and nationwide
2) GLO has many great people, serving selflessly at a great cost to themselves
3) The churches are behind the vision of GLO to prepare youth for leadership
4) GLO is always looking for ways to become self-sustained

Key People

Leadership Profile

Maria Mwape
Maria Mwape was born in 1980 and is originally from Luanshya. When she was 12 years old she met a missionary lady from New Zealand who invited her to attend a youth programme. By the time she was 14 she had accepted Christ as her Saviour.  In 2005 she decided to take a year out from her administration job at a saw mill and attend GLO Bible College in Ndola. At the end of the course they invited her to stay for another year to help with the administration of GLO. She is still there. In September 2010 she went to GLO Bible College in Scotland for six months training on working with youth and human development. She now sees the challenge to put the information in the context of her own culture. 

Since returning to Ndola she has taken on the added responsibility of aiding GLO Zambia to expand its role and service in youth work in Zambia. She is a very important part of the team, has great organizational skills, is good at teaching, and fantastic at organising and mentoring young people.

Vision And Annual Strategy

The vision of GLO Alive is to empower young people and children to fulfil their God given potential for the sake of the Kingdom. 

Objectives:
1) To be a signpost for African youth to witness God's love and compassion through Christ Jesus
2) Together to discover the gifts and talents in young people and develop them
3) To help young people take full responsibility for their actions
4) To facilitate learning among youth and children as they develop physically, academically, socially, psychologically and spiritually
5) To lay a foundation with different mind-sets regarding poverty and work culture
6) To be at the cutting edge of the youth culture and be relevant to meet their needs as they help them to follow Christ
7) To have fun together as they attempt great things for God and as they hope to achieve great things with God 

Personal Stories

Chikumbi

Chikumbi is a young man who got married early in 2015 and invited David Lukama to attend the wedding. He was one of the first boys who came to GLO each day in 2010 to start to learn how to garden. He and his friend did very well in that first year and were able to increase the business the following year by having their own portion of land. Eventually Chikumbi managed to set himself up with a small shop that supplies groceries to the community.

He has never forgotten GLO Alive and the team there, how they welcomed him into the Bible college and helped to train him in farming.

Humphrey Katongo

Humphrey was born in Chingola 25 years ago and moved to Kasama for his primary education. He then went to Kabwe for his secondary school education. He heard about the GLO Alive course from Isaiah Chalwe in Kasama CMML church. When he arrived at GLO he had no idea what it would be like and was expecting Bible college training, being stuck inside all the time.

He found the course very useful and learnt a lot about interacting with his friends and also different types of people. He says it was hard to get to know people on the course at the start, but after spending some time together they became very close. He feels he learnt a lot about how to be a contributing member of society.

He also learnt a lot about theology, and what he thinks about God and His attributes. His mentor group is run by “Uncle David” and they have some very long deep discussions. 

He found some of the physical activities like "rise and shine" (4 am get up and exercise) and Mwela time (the local policeman who comes on Fridays to take them for a boot camp) very challenging but he got better at them.