Report from BHW Zambia Partnership Facilitator Following Visit

Recent Events

Death of Jeremiah

Jeremiah passed away after battling an illness in August last year. Faides is doing really well but misses him a lot. She has been living most of the year in Chingola in a decent sized house owned by Rebecca’s family. She rents the house with her sister Lydia and her two children, Lydia and Metson. They have many young children there as well.

In the growing season Faides heads out to Kamatipa to stay on the plot that she and Jeremiah lived on. The house has fallen down but she stays in a smaller house on the site. She planted groundnuts and maize this year and had great yields from both fields - 30 bags of maize from 1.5 lima (50x75m). She was sad during this time though as she remembered working with Jeremiah. 

Faides has two sons. Jeremiah Junior will complete secondary school teacher training this year. The groundnuts Faides grew helped to pay for the fees this year. Nathan has a piece-meal job with Zesco currently working in Lusaka. Faides gave him 8 bags of maize. 

Leadership

Evans Doigy has been looking after the orphans programme over the last year, buying the school requirements and paying for school fees. He has kept very good receipts and book entries of what they spent. (See personal stories)

Rebecca Kaumba continues to live at Amano School and helps keep in touch with the group. 

Orphans Programme

There are currently 13 orphans in the program and they continue to pay for school fees and buy uniforms and other school requirements. They have also purchased some blankets for the children. 

They met with all the orphans who are in the village on the day that we were there. This is the first time they have done so since Jeremiah passed away. They didn’t plant a field for the orphans last year.

Five of the orphans are now living away from Kamatipa as they are studying at secondary school in Chingola.

One orphan who completed his schooling through the programme in 2014, Leonard Kapenda, came to visit Faides in Chingola after Jeremiah passed away. He gave her a monetary gift, as he is now working in Lusaka with a Chinese soyabean business.

Farming

Evans is a good farmer but he is yet to be trained in Foundations for Farming. They are planning to run a Foundations for Farming training course at Kamatipa with Elizabeth and Mwela from Lulamba (ZAM10c) by the end of August, and to encourage people to start with a small plot.

They have joined up with a Government Co-op which means they will be able to access cheaper fertilizer and seed for the coming season (although unfortunately it is often sent late).

Faides did very well with her own farm this year. People were laughing at her saying “how is this widow going to make a living now the husband has gone” but the people are now very surprised at the yields she got from the maize and groundnuts. It is making them want to learn!

Evans already has a few young men that he is mentoring with farming. He wants people to not be lazy so is showing them what they can do with some hard work.

Personal Stories

Evans Doygie

Evans is a very well respected member in the community. He has a large farm of 10 hectares where he employees up to 15 workers during the season. They grow crops of cassava, sweet potato and maize. He also has a pig run. He harvested 95 x 50kg bags of maize this year from his farm. He also owns the biggest shop in the area. He is a very hard working man, saying that he has been successful due to starting out small and not looking to the pleasures of this world, but following Godly principles for living. 

He has eight children. Matthews is the oldest and helps look after the shop, and the youngest is 6 years old, although there is another baby on the way.

Evans is a church elder in the local CMML church and he became a Christian in 1992. He is originally from Angola and was friends with Jeremiah since then. He leads the local Sunday school of 65 children teaching them the word of God and also gives them a plot on his farm so that they can learn farming. Last year the children yielded 7 bags of groundnuts that they shared amongst themselves.  He says sometimes it is hard being an elder as people seem to like to fight over issues and then leave.

Evans thinks that many people are in poverty because they are lazy and look to the pleasures of the world first, before looking after their families. 

Ester Lwabwe

Ester is 16 years old and lives with her older sister Forcetina (pictured). She is in grade 7 at school and her best subject is maths. She likes school because if she finishes she will be able to have a better life. We asked her what a better life would look like, but she didn’t know.

At home her sister has five children of her own, and is married to a husband. The house has three rooms and is made of mud brick and a grass roof. They eat sweet potato for breakfast and nshima for lunch and dinner. They support themselves through farming. At night she sleeps on the floor in the house and has one blanket that she shares with two others.

When she hangs out with her friends they often try to help each other with studying and learning to read. Big issues for young girls her age in the village are early pregnancy and early marriages.

Ester knows about God and tries to pray to him even outside of church.

Simon Kakunta

Simon's mum died when he was very young so he now lives with his dad and step-mum. He started getting help from the Kamatipa partnership in 2015.

He is 11 years old and is in grade 4. He prays to God that he will keep him well and help him to finish school. He says that Jesus is the one who died for our sins. Simon's family goes to the Seventh Day Adventist church but there is no Sunday school, so Simon doesn’t go.

His father is a charcoal maker which is very hard work. This helps to support the family of six that live together. They also have a field that grows groundnuts and maize. The house is mud brick with iron sheets for the roof, and they have two rooms. They sleep on a mat and share a blanket between two. 

The orphan care programme helps to provide Simon with pens, books and school fees, they are helping him to get to school. In 2015 he was very happy to help work in the orphan's field (they didn’t do a field last year in light of Jeremiah passing away).

Simon likes to play football and wears shirt number 7. He scores lots of goals but says that he is a very slow runner although has a lot of skills.

When Simon grows up he wants to be a policeman. We asked him why, and he said “because then I can arrest people and they have to pay me a bribe before they can get away”. Well, at least he was honest about it!

Ideas for the Future

They discussed at length how they want the care for the orphans to look in the future. They have been thinking that just paying for school fees is not the best way to help and want to somehow empower people through farming. Both Faides and Evans are an example of farmers who are making enough funds to put their children through school.

It may be that they can provide short term relief to some severe cases but to help them back on their feet and then empower the family.

Prayer and Praise Points

1) Prayer for Faides as she continues to adjust to Jeremiah not being around
2) Praise for finding Faides a good house to live in with many family and friends gathering around to support her
3) Pray for the partnership to develop the vision that they have, teaching farming and empowering families to look after orphans
4) Pray for spiritual development of the orphans 

Comments

It was good to see Faides doing really well and to see that she has some good friends and family around to help support her. 

It will be interesting to see how the next year progresses with farming trainings, and what they decide to do with the orphan programme.