Trip to Ndola

On Wednesday, Ad and I traveled to Ndola, a town in the Northern part of Zambia, very close to the border of the DRC (Democratic Republic of Congo).
We were going to visit a project from the RCZ, Reformed Church of Zambia, which is one of CRWRC's partners. Reverend W. Zulu introduced us to the project.

We drove for about 3 hours on a very nice paved road, and then turned of on dirt roads to the first community.
RCZ works with 5 communities in that area, mainly Food Security Programs.
Each community consists of a Farmers group of 100 Farmers, about 2/3 of each group are women.
As we arrived at the first community, Mkulounge, the farmers present stood up and sang and danced a welcome song. Quite humbling.
The facilitator, Mr. Banda, introduced us to the group and then we were asked to introduce ourselves.

The president of this group, the lady in the picture above, read a report about all the things they have learned and are applying now.
It became apparent that this group of Farmers feels empowered by what they have learned. They have applied many of the techniques.
Some of the other representatives in the group shared what this all means to them and gave testimonies.
* We used to eat once a day, now we have three meals per day.
* We used to have just enough to eat, but now with the surplus that we can sell, we are able to send our
   children to school.
* There is no hunger in this area anymore.

This group of Farmers was also given a few goats. Whenever these goats get kids, more members of the group will receive a goat. 

The community of Kavu shared basically the same things, but some members in this group have chosen a pig instead of a goat.

Besides educating in farming skills, they also would like to get some training in primary health care, to better take care of their families and a literacy program for some members in the group.

In the Mkulounge community the members of the Farmers group have been able to save money and together they are now building a storage shed.

One man told us with enthusiasm that they are building it together, they even made the bricks for the building themselves.

This group has also been able with the saved money to have a small business, they buy and sell fish!

It is amazing to see and hear that with some training and guidance  and very hard work, these communities are able to improve their conditions. 

At the end of the afternoon we visited an urban community, Mackenzie.

The situation for this group is much more complicated, since the members of this group don't own land, but are trying to rent. The conditions are difficult.

Ad suggested that they focus on urban agriculture, and micro-credit for trading.

They shared though, that their hart is in farming.

                     This cute little child peaked over the wall as we met with the group in Mackenzie.

All in all it was a very encouraging day.

On our way home we stopped along the way and bought some fruits and veggies from sellers along the road :) The umbrella made us chuckle.