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Report from Kennedy
The local chief in our targeted area, Chief MABUMBA has donated arable land located about 3.5 kilometres away from the Mansa main town centre; the land is located near a village called Namwandwe and in Chief Mabumba's area. The road is all weather accessible, near the electrical power line and water sources available. We have planned not to disturb the people settled near by the same land, we will cut through behind the village and leave the houses outside the project land. This idea as welcomed by both the villagers and the village leadership committee. We have already visited the 6 village local community leaders on the possibilities of the project starting to use the land and we were welcomed. The village head expressed happiness for us choosing that location.
Dr Cary moves to Mansa in March 2008 and the project begins! |
Here is his report back from his visit to Zambia in 2007 to tell the story of where our work started.
July 6, 2007
Friday
Dear Anne,
The following is a brief assessment of my findings from my recent trip to Zambia.
Background
Africa is home to the greatest poverty in the world. HIV/AIDS has added to its burden and over the past two decades annihilated an entire generation of people. This silent holocaust has claimed the lives of over 30 million people worldwide and over 45 million people now infected may add to these statistics. The fallout of such devastation is millions of orphans. Many are homeless and more fortunate ones are cared for by their grandmothers who are now their primary care givers.
Zambia is one of poorest countries in the world. Hard hit by HIV/AIDS, statistics clearly tell the story. 50% of Zambia's population is unemployed. 83% live below the poverty line on less than one dollar a day. 21% of the people are infected with HIV and there are currently about 800,000 orphans there now as a result. The lifespan is 33 years old.
I went to Zambia with the kind assistance of a local concerned resident and visited his village near Mansa, a small city in the northern part of the country. What I saw was beyond the imagination to comprehend. Misery and hardship plagued the majority of people and I felt powerless and discouraged at the enormity of the issues and problems facing these people. Village after village filled with affected people made any effort to make a difference futile. Countless numbers of grandmothers barely holding onto life by a spider's thread cared for their orphaned grandchildren. They lived in grass huts without water or electricity on the dirt ground without blankets, mattresses, clothing, or shoes. Barely able to sustain themselves most of the children were out in the field foraging for food out of school and wanting only to make it through another day.
We bought blankets, clothes and food for the most vulnerable families and gave money to some grandmothers to serve as seed money to help them begin selling produce at the market for some income. We also enrolled a number of children in school and helped with the infrastructures for an orphanage and community school. The needs were enormous and there was clearly a need for more developmental work.
The Project
There is currently a haemorrhage happening in Zambia. With an illiterate and/or uneducated and uninformed population, farming practices and ignorance have put undue pressure on the land and extinguished its fertility, forests and future. We believe the way to address this is through education and income generating schemes for people not only to meet their basic needs, but stifle the cycle of poverty permanently.
The Trip
Flying into the south part of the country, I took a bus to the capital, Lusaka, where Kennedy met me and showed me parts of the city, before continuing together onto Mansa, about 8 hours to the north. The road system is simple and relatively smooth and well maintained. Outside of the capital there are few vehicles except for bus lines connecting major cities and towns.
Mansa is a small town with a population of about 270,000 which includes all outlying areas. The town is relatively small with one internet cafe, two banks, and one supermarket. The outdoor markets are limited and people sell only rice, cassava, beans, tomatoes, onions, some oranges, bananas and some greens. There is no public transportation in the city, but there are taxis. Most people walk or use bicycles.
Kennedy lives in an earth-brick hut with grass roof without electricity or running water. He is married with three children and takes care of his wife's two brothers. Together we met many people to identify the greatest needs. My objective was to identify grandmothers caring for their orphaned grandchildren. This was easy to find as every household has been touched directly or indirectly by HIV/AIDS. We began our assessment by meeting a group of 80 grandmothers who asked for material to cultivate their land. They were women of the church and collectively worked together to grow food to help those in greatest need, other grandmothers with orphans. In the African context, communities stick together and help one another, but without resources themselves, it is difficult to do so.
We continued our assessment directly into the surrounding villages and identified hardship after hardship. Grandmothers caring for their grandchildren seemed to be the norm everywhere. It was not uncommon to see grannies taking care of up to ten grandchildren that they inherited from the deaths of most of their children. Visiting dozens of these forgotten families I was struck by their appalling living conditions. No one had water or electricity, few had shoes and bedding and many had no blankets. You will see photos posted on the website of some of these families and their huts. It remains unimaginable to me how a granny and her 7 grandchildren can sleep on a potato sack without linens, mattress, pillow or blanket in the cold of winter. Not intending to give handouts, I could not walk away from these people without finding some temporary measure to help them. We gave blankets and food supplies including dried fish, eggs, beans and soap to many families. In addition, to some grannies with the greatest hardships, I gave some start up money for them to buy bulk goods to sell in the market. It was my hope that with the profit they made, they would be able to sustain themselves as their children went to school. Usually in these families, the children did not go to school because they lacked money to buy school uniforms and shoes. While grammar school is supposed to be free, in reality, there is a cost to students because they are responsible to purchase appropriate attire. Unfortunately, without resources, the children are not permitted to study. In turn, they spend their days at home helping their grandmothers and working to collect some money to support the family.
As a generation has died to AIDS, the future generation seems to be destined to illiteracy and poverty. It seemed logical to me to get these children back into school. So, we purchased uniforms and shoes, school bags and supplies for many children to return to school. In addition, we paid for school tuitions for students who were beyond 7th grade. For children now too old to return to formal education, we are looking into sponsoring them to attend skills training to give them a sustainable way to care for themselves in the future.
In any crisis there is an emergency period and a developmental period. Zambia is currently in both periods. As global warming takes its toll on the land, water supplies are drying up and food cultivation is harder. In addition, the practice of brick making which uses the earth's top soil has denuded the earth of valuable nutrition, leaving their fields infertile. As a result, farmers are required to purchase synthetic fertilizer which takes any remaining profit intended to support them after the growing season has ended.
The enormity of the problems facing Zambians is mind boggling. It is easy to fall pray to discouragement and an overall sense of futility. Where to begin?
My Assessment
The best place to begin is at the beginning. This means we must begin with the children, new hearts, and new minds, malleable and enthusiastic. We must begin through education. Getting these children in school and keeping them in school will open up unlimited possibilities for their future.
A school program
A school program must include providing vulnerable children with uniforms, shoes, supplies and tuition. There must also be a monitoring of these children we sponsor. I've already identified a woman of the church, Joyce, who will identify the most needy children and follow-up with them and their families to make sure they remain in school and have the support they need. Benefactors of the school program will be mostly orphans. While the government provides free education for children up to 7th grade, there are not enough places in the existing schools for this to happen. Depending on the numbers of children, we may need to consider constructing our own school, staffing it with teachers and setting our own guidelines. This needs to be looked into in the future.
A communal farm
A communal farm will serve as a model for the community to learn about conservational farming. This farm will be unique in that crops will be rotated according to farming methods most beneficial to restoring the land's fertility. Soya will be among the crops to help villagers to get more protein in their diets and rely less on the carbohydrates they typically farm, potatoes and cassava. Oxen will be trained and used to plough the fields and transport goods to market for sale.
Goat raring
Goats are excellent food sources and an income generating scheme that can help people become self-sustaining. A proper goat house will be constructed and numerous goats will be bred and sold. People will learn how to raise and care for goats responsibly. Ways of helping people raise and equitably share the goats with other villagers will be part of this program similar to the practices already effective in other areas of the world, i.e., the Heifer Foundation.
Skills Centre
A skills centre will be organized for people to be trained in some sustainable trade. Tailoring, pottery making, carpentry and other locally appropriate trades will be taught.
People can gain access to this training with commitments of profit sharing to the community so their good fortune seeds the beginning of another person's future.
Communal Kitchen
A communal kitchen will be set up to teach hygiene, nutrition and food preparation. With malnutrition so widespread in the community, education on this front is essential. In addition, the model of a community kitchen will give communities ways of saving their resources. Instead of ten families independently cooking their meals, it can be done by a select few who cook for the entire group which can remain productive in the fields or selling goods.
Orphanage
As grandmothers die, their orphaned grandchildren are left destitute. We must think pro-actively to set up ways to cope for the care of these children. In addition, there is a lot of adult use and abuse of vulnerable children. In the African context, it is unlikely to find a proper family to serve as a foster family that will responsibly adopt other children. As a result, we may need to consider building a proper orphanage.
The above projects all will be part of a village within a village. I envision a community. Using communal resources will put less pressure on the earth and have long lasting benefits to the environment. In addition, the communal village will be an educational centre for people in the village to come and learn skills and new ways to work and live within their own context. Seeing things in action is a very good way of teaching people with limited educational backgrounds. They will learn from example and be able to duplicate similar practices on their farms. The communal village will also be staffed by vulnerable people so our target population is served.
The communal village will also provide an avenue for Westerners to come and partake. They can come and stay to teach and assist according to their abilities and talents. Helping people directly will touch their hearts and they will be inspired to serve others as a result. It is through this service that they will have their meeting with God in whatever that energy takes.
Here are some of the things we have done with the initial funds:
1) We visited one orphanage supposedly cared for by the Adventist Church. Unfortunately, they have essentially abandoned this project. We repaired their water system and purchased hoses and seedlings for them to cultivate their fields which were bare. We also sponsored the eldest orphan who had graduated from high school, but then abandoned without school or trade.
2) Family of 9. A 20 year old girl was taking care of her 8 siblings after the death of their parents. They lived in abominable conditions sharing one blanket, sleeping on the floor without electricity or water. They ate one meal a day, never meat and rarely any protein. You bought bedding for them and supplied them with provisions for a month as well as flips flops for each child. The eldest girl was given some start up money to begin selling goods at the market.
3) Phiri is a 14 year old who had been expelled from school because he didn't have a school uniform. He was re-enrolled and his tuition was covered as well as a uniform and school supplies.
4) Jason is a 14 year old boy orphan living in the gutters in Lusaka. He asked for permission to study. Kennedy agreed to adopt him so he was brought back to Mansa and enrolled. You have sponsored his education and take care of his basics for living. His picture is on the internet. His life has truly been saved.
5) You provided three blackboards for a community school that had only walls. We are considering buying them desks as they now sit on rocks or directly on the floor in a room without lighting or proper ceiling.
6) Numerous children were put back into school and school needs provided.
7) Lectures on HIV, Nutrition, Massage, Health and Global warming were given to large audiences.
8) Provisions, clothes and start up money were given to numerous grannies and their orphans as emergency measures to help them this winter.
The project has already purchased a sewing machine to make school uniforms. We also purchased a computer and mountain bike for Kennedy. Eventually, we will need to consider transportation, office space and other necessities. At this point, I will remain in contact with Kennedy and organize things from afar. We still have a number of details to work out, but the project will grow organically.
I'm excited about this project as I believe it is well designed, sustainable, involves community participation and locally driven to meet its particular needs. This model can also serve as the blueprint for others like it in other areas facing similar hardship and poverty. It is God inspired, designed and destined.
My love to you, Anne,
Cary
Hearts & Hands for Africa
Donations
A big moment for us when the local chief His Royal Highness Chief Manbumba donated land to our project. We are so grateful for this gift and we can start building the homes and crops can be planted now in 2008.
Dear Sir,
RFE: LAND OFFER TO HEARTS AND HANDS FOR AFRICA
I chief Manbumba today the 7th September, 2007 have offered 15 hectares piece of land to Hears and Hands for Africa project, the proposed project area is located in Namwandwe, Chamalawa Village along Samfya –Mansa old down to Mansa river.
This piece of land is free and not occupied by any of my subjects; I have decided to offer this piece of land to Hearts and Hands for Africa for development in my area due to the aspirations of the project to reduce poverty and many suffering to the grandmother and orphaned children in my area.
Your assistance to this initiative will be highly appreciated and will go a long way to alleviate poverty in my chiefdom.
Yours faithfully,
Zambia is one of the poorest countries in the world. It is a landlocked country in the southern part of Africa without access to the sea. The unemployment rate is greater than 50% and 83% of the population lives below the poverty line on less than $1 a day. The country has been hard hit by HIV/AIDS. Greater than 21% of its population is HIV positive and as a result the average lifespan is only 33 years old. An entire generation of people is being decimated leaving behind nearly 800,000 orphans.
Zambia is suffering from draught conditions. It is dry with poor soil fertility, water and electricity shortages.
The country's infrastructure is poor and petrol prices are among the highest in Africa which makes transportation unaffordable, burdening the poor and limiting the people's movement.
In rural Zambia, people survive by farming. Their lives are simple, but surviving is nearly impossible. Crop shortages, limited water supplies, rampant disease with difficult access to health services and every other impediment to comfort make life unbearable. Without electricity nothing is mechanized and so lives are hand made.
This photo shows typical huts that are sprinkled around the country. They are made of hand made bricks and grass. Termites feast on these structures so they are in constant need of repair. Typically these huts have no electicity or running water.
This is typical Zambian kitchen. To the right, there is a hand mill to grind grains and to the left, there is a wood fed stove. Without gas or electricity, people rely on trees for firewood. As a result, deforestation is taking its toll. Trees play an important role in rainfall and stablizing the earth. Without them rain decreases and the soil erodes.
Initiatives are underway to promote wood efficient stoves. These stoves are made with locally produced bricks, mud and ash. Such "technology" is user friendly because the materials are found locally and cost nothing to the villagers. The stove's design insulates the heat and greatly decreases the need for so much fire wood.
Walking through a village one day, I noticed this child painstakingly looking for some water. The nearby well is nearly dry and she does her best to fill a bottle of water from the well. With global warming,deforestation, and increasing populations, the country's water supply is becoming quickly inadequate to meet the people's needs.
Culturally, a family's wealth is measured not by their personal possessions, but in the number of children they have.
AIDS is decimating entire generations. The only way to cope is for the community to look after one another. They do, but their ways and means are limited and often times inadequate. Children are left behind to fend for themselves when mom and dad die from this disease that does not discriminate; it takes children, mothers and fathers. Those left behind care for those more vulnerable than they are. In this picture, a child cares for his younger brother. This is the cycle of life that follows the untimely cycle of death that is all too familiar to people in Africa.
Poverty forces people to be efficient and resourceful. There is no space to be frivilous and wasteful. In order to survive when there isn't enough for everyone is to pool your resources and work together. Such is the way in Africa. Communities are close. Everyone is your sister or brother, auntie or uncle.
This photo is a community school built by the community for the community. Everyone donated handmade bricks, grass and labour to construct this school to educate their children. Such initiatives defy the power-hold of poverty. The power of the people as one is not only the only means of survival, but a lesson for us all.
This classroom had nothing resembling a typical classroom except the students. There was no usable blackboard, light, windows, desks or even chairs. Children sat on these rocks and held their notebooks on their knees.
Phiri is 14 years old and was recently kicked out of school because he lacked funds to pay tuition and purchase a proper uniform. We sponsored him to return to school and he wrote this letter to Anne:
"I am Phiri. I am 14 years old. I would like to say thank you for the present that you gave me. So, now I have even started going to school because of your help that you helped me. Without you I don't know what I would have done. I don't have much to say all that I can say is may God bless you. I thank you for your gifts!
Luapula Province, Zambia
June 19, 2007
Her name is...
She stands naked at a door post.
When did your mother die?
Tears come to her eyes.
It was 2002 yet 5 years later her eyes still get wet.
Her hand clasps the edges of a piece of fabric wrapped around her hips, a kind of skirt, but the edges don't meet and it is a safety pin that helps her. The edges don't meet so it is her hand that blocks her womanhood from being a public spectacle.
She stands thin and tall like an African giraffe. She is silent like one, too. She is like an African giraffe without its majesty, without its stride or towering countenance. Instead of towering the open plains, she towers poverty.
She haunts me as she silently taunts me.
I cannot sleep. Completely exhausted, I lie in bed with her looking at me. It is a rare sight to see a broken spirit. The human spirit is resilient. The African spirit is among the most resilient. So, to see hers has left me without peace.
I cannot settle. Feeling helpless isn't the state I settle for. There must be some solution. How easy can it be to swoop her up and take her to restore her life, give her a complete life lift: shoes, shirt, skirt, soap, etcetera, etcetera, etcetera? If I find her another home, adopt her into another place of plenty what will happen to her grandmother? Will it unburden the aged one or bring further burden upon her without the assistance of this grandchild? As a wave has an up and a down stroke, so does everything in life. What we do has its ups and downs, too. Living life requires finesse to know what to do that will cause the least amount of waves. I'm not the best at this and I often fail this test. I must believe that if something is done out of love, the ripple of love will prevail even though tsunamis come from doing, saying, and changing too much, too quickly.
This is a holocaust, a silent holocaust that happens without journalists without the world press. It is a holocaust without the gas chambers and ovens. The killer isn't orating in front of millions. This is a silent holocaust working behind the scene silently out of sight out of mind. The bodies decay slowly and steadily disappearing without trace. Even the memories of those dead fades as the children left behind were too young to remember their birthrights: a mother and a father. It is only the grannies that live to collect and care for the specks of life that dare to stick around. But they are too frail and make no sound themselves. They are the real heroes of compassion. But what can they offer more than love and a piece of cassava from time to time. They are otherwise helpless and sing a song so soft that it is unrecognizable. So, how is the world to know about them? It is the rare and uncommon neighbor who steps outside her own doorstep and steps into the world of the grannies. She tells the story to the rare and uncommon one coming from afar to bring a little glimpse those being buried alive bypassing the chambers and the ovens and going directly into oblivion never to be seen or heard about again.
This is a silent holocaust that is orchestrated and managed by poverty. And the root of it? The story is so convoluted that it is too hard to tell. Is it the broken condom or the woman who sells herself for a piece of rice to feed her fatherless children? Her man abandoned her before baby was born. In fact, he abandoned her somewhere between the time ovum met sperm. He left the scene shortly after dumping his polluted pool of man to ravage her and her soon coming baby. Dead or alive it lives a life not worth living.
And the root of it? The millions of millions paying off the people in power or the diamonds that adorn the people of plenty? Or is it the unnourished mind or soil that has long since been famished? What is the root of this holocaust? Like crabs in a basket that need not be covered, you are rest assured none will leave the basket. Anyone nearing the edge will be thwarted and returned by gravity through the reliable guard of the others. Poverty doesn't let you go. It goes with you. What is the root of it and how do you uproot it? Please help me. Please help me to understand where I stand. Please help me to stand.
These grandmothers are good deed doers in their respective communities. When asked what they needed to support their work, they asked for seeds to plant in order to grow food to feed their neighbours.
This grandmother is disabled and cannot walk. She depends on her neighbors for help. Sometimes they are lucky and can eat. Sometimes, they are unlucky and cannot eat.
An amazing story made more amazing. In one village, we found an unusual sight, a grandfather. This was unusual because there are so few who survive to an elderly age. Another unusual sight was that neither grandpa or grandma could see... they were blind...caring for their five grandchildren. What is amazing? I looked at both grandma and grandpa closely and found that while he was permanently blind, she had what appeared to be cataracts. I could not determine without proper equipment if her cataracts were operable or inoperable so I referred her to the hospital where she was found to have operable cataracts. Her operation was a great success and she is now able to see again!
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This family tells their story. They are brothers, sisters and cousins all under one grass roof. Grandma takes care of them all feeding them what she grows in her garden. Sometimes, her neighbors bring a piece of potato or two, but not often. The children have no shoes, no one has blankets or any other clothes. I asked to go inside her house.
Inside grandma's house is what you see. It was simple and clean. What you see is what was.
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