Changing the Community

One more full day in Zambia, and I begin the trip home. On one hand, it’s hard to believe the trip is nearing its end. I still feel as if I have a lot to learn here. On the other hand, it’s been a long trip, and I’m definitely ready to come home and see my family!

Since I’ve brought you some sobering messages the last few days, I thought I’d change the tone a bit today. Most of our day was spent in the offices in meetings with national and regional staff, but we did have an opportunity to go visit a small community near town. In this community, a woman has started an amazing project to help widows, orphans, and vulnerable children. The group purchased some property in the local area that had functioned as a bar and brothel for some time. They’ve cleaned it up, and created a school for 1st through 5th graders, a kitchen where they make soy milk and other items for the children, and also sell to the local community, and a small business for many of the local women.

Let me take a quick detour to help you understand what we saw today. We’ve had a chance to visit two other schools here. In both cases, the children had no books and few supplies. I don’t think a single one of them had shoes on, maybe a few with flip flop type sandals. The library consisted of a small cabinet with a few books. The science lab was an old scale and a partial skeleton sitting on a cart. The buildings were in poor repair. All that said, the teachers were extremely dedicated. They would make their own lesson, or copy sections of textbooks to the chalkboard for the children to memorize. The children had made small examination booklets that they used for all their lessons. All of them had to show us what they were learning. I don’t think I’ve ever seen that many children in one place with such neat handwriting! It was obvious that despite the conditions, the teacher and the students were committed to education. (Don’t you wish you could bottle a bit of the dedication and take it back to the US???)

Now let’s fast forward to today. Like the other school, most of the children in this school have lost at least one parent. Many have lost both, and are currently living in child headed households. Just like the other school, the children have no shoes. These kids have been through more at a very young age than some of us will go through in a lifetime. The difference is this school has received some money from a variety of donors. That money has been used to clean up the buildings, acquire a few books and a few tools. With a fairly small amount of assistance, and some dedicated focus, this school looks and feels completely different. Walls are painted bright colors. Children are playing games in the courtyard. Smiles abound everywhere. The difference is amazing. While you could see learning happening in the other schools, the learning is alive at this school.

Then it gets better! Many of the women in the area are widows with little ability to provide income for their families. Here, these women have come together and started their own business. They take plastic bags of all different colors (like the kind you get in the grocery store), cut them into strips, tie the strips together, and then crochet purses, hats, and handbags with the material. The group sells the bags in the markets, and then profits are shared within the group. I didn’t catch the exact breakdown, but some of the money goes to the group to help pay for the area, some of the money goes into a community account, and the rest (and it’s most of the total) is retained by the person who made the bag. While I don’t think this is self-supporting yet, I think it has every opportunity to be, and the women are able to care for their families, as well as contribute to the local community.

Just like the Caregivers you met yesterday, these women are community supporters. They are making change in their own communities by emphasizing education, good nutrition, health, and business. With a little focused support, these women are now doing it themselves. Isn’t it amazing what a little community can do?