HIV/AIDS is a major national problem. According to the National AIDS Counsel, in 2004 figures showed that by the following year, 773,539 of Zambians will be reported with HIV/AIDS or TB, and this figure just keeps growing. The number infected probably does not depict the actual situation as these figures reflect only the record keeping that is taking place in health centres.

As a result of the HIV/AIDS pandemic most of the children have been orphaned and made to be vulnerable after the death of their parents or guardians. For instance in Shamabanse, Nakoli and Mwalala, the estimated population is 17,000 and out of this 7,000 are estimated to be OVCs (orphaned and vulnerable children). In these three communities, there is no government school and the nearest government school is about 2 km away.

Most of the people here are very poor and earn less than a dollar per day. They depend on trading and piece work (hired labour) and as a result children are either forced into child labour, early marriage, prostitution or left to go into the streets to beg.

In order to arrest the situation it is important to build a school which is centrally and strategically located to service the three communities mentioned above.  

Praise God, earlier this year "God's Rocks" and Forest Grove Community Church have committed to building a new school in Shambanse and they have already begun to break ground! 

Below is the latest update from Zambia:

“The construction of the school in Shamabanse has commenced and work is progressing well as can be seen in the photos attached. All the building materials have been procured, the moulding of bricks is underway and the foundation box has reached an advanced stage. Community participation is excellent and there is a sense of ownership on the part of the community as they are participating in every decision we are making.” Pastor Eric Mwambelo, Kabwe Home Based Care

                                                                                                                           

Last year WOW provided funds to begin a Poultry Project within the Shamabanse Community.  Home Based Care workers with Kabwe Home Based Care, a WOW partner in Kabwe, Zambia, appealed to WOW to help them begin an income generating activity that would help raise the funds needed to transport critically ill patience to hospital.  They had found a suitable building for raising chickens and immediately began to prayed about this new endeavour.  An appeal to our WOW donors quickly brought enough funds to help purchase 250 chickens as well as feed and feeding materials.  Home based care volunteers soon began selling the eggs to the people in the Shamabanse community as they made their daily walk out to their appointed home based care patients.  It wasn't long before the demand for eggs was greater then the output from their chickens!!

The Poultry Project also commits to giving one unit of eggs, (10 eggs) each month to orphaned and vulnerable children in their community.  One of these children is named Patience.  Her story has been recorded below by a home based care worker.  Please pray for Patience as she is quite ill with HIV/AIDS.  The addition of eggs to her diet is a great help to her since the medication that is used to treat HIV/AIDS patients requires a regular, healthy food intake for it to be effective.

Patience

My name is Patience.  I am 7 years old.  My father passed away when I was three years old, two years later my mother died also.  I was left with my grandmother who is also a widow with no means of generating income because of her old age.  I am one of the beneficiaries of Mapalo Home Based Care, (a WOW partner in Zambia).  I started grade 1 at a government school and as a time went by I stopped going to school because my grandmother could not afford to buy me a  uniform and books because she is looking after other orphans as well.  Since my parents died I have had no proper clothing and shoes.  When I am going to church I have to borrow shoes and a nice looking dress.  I feel bad for having lost my parents.  I cry day and night when I am sick because there is no one to take me to the clinic.  Each time I see my friends with parents and how they are dressed and what they are eating I remember mum and Dad in tears.  Thanks to Mapalo Home Based Care volunteers who identified me as an orphan in need.  When I grow up I want to be a Social Worker.  I am appealing for help to enable me to get back in school.

Patience is receiving some food supplements including eggs from a poultry farm that was started by volunteers within the community.

On February 14, 2008 Richard Brown, International Director for Visionledd, visited the WOW community of Shamabanse.  While there the widows group made a presentation to Richard Brown and his team, thanking them for the work that Visionledd and WOW are doing in their community. This group receives food supplements, phsyco-social support and income generating training in tailoring. Their speech reads as follows:

A speech from widows to our guests of honor:

This group of widows come from different churches.  I am standing on behalf of my fellow widows and would like to thank Visionledd and WOW for the tremendous help you have rendered to us as widows.  As widows it was not easy.  We had nothing to rely on.  We used to send our children for some piece work and selling of rape.  We thank Visionledd and WOW, who through Kabwe Home-based Care, sent us for training in psycho-social support.  We confess to our living God who has seen how we used to abuse our children (OVC's).  We thank God that we now know our rights and our children's rights. 

We thank Visionledd and WOW and know that you will sustain our families.  Our group consists of 30 widows.  We have 1 sewing machine serving 3 widows, again there is another group pending due to unlimited number of sewing machines.  We hope this will be taken into consideration by Visionledd and WOW.

As you have heard the group of widows comes from different churches, Roman Catholic, United Church of Zambia, United Gospel, Fine Baptist, and Pentecostal.  For support we ask you to give us more support, expecially in accomodation.  We wish you more blessing. 

Thank you,

Prepared by RDC Secretary, Bertha Mulombwa, in the widow's committee.