Report from BHW Zambia Partnership Facilitator Following Visit

Key people:  Anthony Ranjan
                     Christina
                     Mr Chilufia

We visited with Christina who has been working with Anthony for 21 years. She took us around the three sites to see what has been happening.

Recent Events

Lubasi Home

At Lubasi Home vulnerable children who are considered by the Zambian courts to need care outside of their own families are housed. The reasons for the vulnerability could be abuse, poverty, lack of housing, or other reasons the court deems their situation to be unsafe for the children.

The children are housed in dorms, with up to ten in a dorm. Currently there are 37 children in the home. Each dorm has several “mothers” who are called auntie by the children. The ladies take care of the children 24/7 in shifts throughout the week as they also have their own families. The selection of the “mothers” is very key in making the home a safe place, as they must have a heart for these vulnerable children. They normally come from local churches.

The children are also helped into the local schools, with uniforms and other school requirements.

The home is keeping rabbits, chickens, and a garden to help provide for the food requirements of the home, plus some extra to sell to help fund the home. 

Lushomo Trust

Mrs Mwale is the coordinator at the home for sexually abused children. The home can cater for up to 15 girls, where they are securely housed and have counselling to help with the trauma in their lives. Many of the girls that come have been abused by family members, which causes many issues of accountability in the families. To return to the families would not be a safe environment for these children.

Some eventually do graduate to Labasi Home once they are well enough. The girls in the home sang for us. The words of the song were “even though I am being hurt, I am shining because of Jesus”. Yikes. 

Grace Centre

Skills Centre:
The plot of land was purchased in 2014, and the first classrooms were finished and used in 2017. They have also brought another plot of land 3km away, where they want to do farming and build more dormitories.

Tailoring:
There are 20 students attending the 18-month course for tailoring. They are learning many elements of the tailoring business as well as the skills required to create cloths and other items.

They help to contribute to the skills centre by taking goods back to their local villages and selling on behalf. This course has been running since 2017.

Information Technology:
This is run in conjunction with an internet café to help fund the skills centre. The students are learning many Microsoft applications and other applications with computers.

Catering:
20 students are learning cooking and how to run a restaurant. This has just opened, and we had a very nice meal there. The aim is for it to grow as the area is coming up with the bridge across Zambezi into Botswana and Zimbabwe, and with hospitals and police stations being close by.

Village Empowerment

The aim is to reach 17 villages in the area with micro-loan finance programmes to empower people to start up businesses. Currently six have been impacted by the loan fund programme, with 10,000 ZMW (US$620) being given to each village group of 10 participants. 

To receive the loan, the people must come with a business proposal that is first vetted. Then after preparation, Anthony gives it the final sign off and has the loan secured by something the head man owns, so the loans are paid back.

The Farm

We visited the 50-ha farm which was about 50 km north of Livingstone. The farm has been totally fenced with poles and a bare wire fence around the entire plot. We were able to pray with Anthony, Mr Chilfia and Robbie at the place they call the prayer mountain.

Some progress has been made to build the accommodation block for the trainees that they are intending to come.

Before last season five of the team were trained in Foundations for Farming in Choma. This course went well and then the same five were sent to Chengelo Foundations for Farming Centre.

The first yield from the farm was disappointing to the team, due to issues with rain and termites. They yielded 28 bags from 2 ha (0.7 ton per hectare). The soil is very sandy in nature, and it is going to take some time to increase the fertility.

This year they have up to 15 workers who are preparing 9 ha of land for planting maize, groundnuts, sweet potato, and sorghum. The land in the winter season has been well looked after, and very well marked out, with good mulch. A great job has been done. Some of the methods used to dig the planting stations are not quite in line with Foundations for Farming, such as digging trenches instead of potholes, mounding up some soil around the plants while weeding, but there is a lot that has been completed at a very high standard. The aim this year is to make compost in the rainy season for the following season, as there is a lack of water. This year they will just use manure and fertilizer.

749 trees have been planted, both local trees and fruit trees, that the workers must water twice a week from the hand pump. 

The plan is to set up the farm with solar and pumps with a trickle irrigation system so they can have some examples to train local villagers with any time of the year, and to allow the farm to become self-sustaining.

Farming Training

Anthony has set up a structure where each of the 20 local villagers are to present one youth for training. These people will be vetted by Anthony’s team. The chief of the village must sign an agreement that once trained the person will be given 1 ha of land to farm on.

The youth will be divided into groups of five working together on aspects of the farm. This will include farming and discipleship. Each group will be overseen by one of the five team members who have been trained in Foundations for Farming.

Personal Stories

Christina told us the story of one girl who is in the house for young girls who were sexually abused. The girl was just 8 years old when her uncle abused her. She was staying with him as her parents had both died. She ran away from the uncle and ended up on the streets as a prostitute, at the age of 9. 

She was selling herself to live, with different prices for with or without a condom (around US0.70 cents). From this she contracted HIV Aids.

When she was 16 years old and still on the streets, Anthony met her. She was a bit of the catalyst for starting the home for the abused.

Current Issues and Challenges

Currently none of the programmes have a permanent donor, they just survive on random donations from people.

The water situation at the farm is difficult. To achieve the vision of growing crops all year round will take substantial investment.

Plans for the Future

Bright Hope World had agreed to send some funds for funding the team members to be trained in Foundations for Farming but so far these funds have not been used, even though they have been trained.

They need follow-up at the farm to keep them on track with the methods, to ensure they dig less, and continue to add compost and mulch to the soil to improve fertility. The use of fertilizer in the soil is probably not much use as the lack of organic matter will mean nutrients added are not available to plants. There is the potential to see if Edwin Chama from GLO could visit them.

Anthony is going to work on a budget for the solar pump and watering system.