Food Security in Three Phases

The Covid year and a half in Zambia produced fear and economic collapse in Zambia, and as always, the poor suffered the most. Our families, who have children with disabilities, are headed mostly by women and literally could not adequately feed their children. So Sydney Mwamba, the managing director of the AACDP in Livingstone, is designing and executing a three-part project to provide food now and in the future.

Thanks to our successful fundraiser with GlobalGiving, the AACDP has begun step one delivering monthly boxes of food staples to 40 families to offset the rampant inflationary food prices that followed in the wake of Covid business restrictions.

In phase two, which begins next month, we will offer support in helping families create or improve home gardens where possible.

Phase three is the purchase of 20 acres of farmland in areas where our local people have access to their traditional land at very reasonable prices. The land has been located and a price agreed upon. This will be a long term project requiring preparation of the land and minimal infrastructure: a small traditional building for storage and a caretaker. Most important will be a solar irrigation system when rain is scarce. The local tribal chief from whom we are buying the land has told us that he is very pleased to see the area the whole neighborhood improved.

Success! Raising Money and Awareness

So last April 5 the AACDP entered a kind of contest for entry into a world wide non profit fundraising group called GlobalGiving. I learned about this organization by chance talking to a friend of a friend, who also has a small non profit like the AACDP. She urged me to look at GlobalGiving, whose mission is to drive donor funding towards small grassroots projects.

We named our project "Delivering Food to Hungry Families in Zambia".

Everybody has heard about the waste of money and resources at the big charities. GlobalGiving is making visible to many levels of donors programs like ours, run by people who directly work with their communities, where all donations go to benefit those people. It takes time and thought to learn the skills and apply them. But skill building is part of their package, and, guess what? It worked.

The requirement for admission to GlobalGiving was to raise at least $4000 from at least 40 separate donors. I did not know if we could do it, but with a lot of suggestions from GG, we managed to bring in our target sum of $18,00! from 140 people! Out of almost 400 entries, we were 5th. I was surprised and thrilled.

The best part is how our ideas evolved for this appeal. At first we thought, well, we'll begin a food drive for our families that cannot afford food with the out-of-control inflation. Then we thought, we'll help provide seeds and fertilizer for home gardens. Then Sydney Mwamba, who runs the AACDP in Zambia, realized that our families have the right to buy nearby traditional land at very good price from their tribal chiefs. So Sydney suggested we start a communal farm. The women who make our dolls are so excited at this propect. These are people that come from agricultural backgrounds in their native villages, although they have moved to town. They know how to produce food and how to market it as well.

So this will be an ongoing labor which may take a few years. Besides the land, we'll need a solar water system, a few small traditional buildings, tools and seeds working towards the time when the farm sustains itself and all those who work on it.

You can see our project page for the contest here:

https://www.globalgiving.org/projects/delivering-food-to-hungry-families-in-zambia/

Probably many of you have already contributed to us for this, but, if you missed it and want to part of an effort that will create food and income for a group that has especially had a hard time during then pandemic, please join us. We will keep you up to date with a report every three months on our progress.

A Home for Holliness Moomba

This all took place in 2011, but I am unable to change the date on the original blogs which were moved from an earlier AACDP website. A lot has happened since that terrible event. She and her husband succeeded in building a brick house with a rental apartment attached for income. The AACDP helped to support Holliness in several years of nursing school and once she began to work, she sent her younger sister, who lost both of her young children in the terrible accident, to nursing school as well.

Holliness lost 4 family members last January when a drunk driver crashed into the house they were renting in Livingstone, Zambia. No charges were ever filed against the driver, who, no doubt, paid his way out of certain conviction.

Her late mother, a charcoal vendor, had managed to save enough money to buy a small plot of land outside of town. So Holliness and her sisters moved out to the land, and with $500 from the AACDP built a temporary house, seen in the back of the photo. Holliness continued to work as a charcoal vendor, as her mother before her, enabling two of her sisters to continue in school. And now, they are fabricating cement bricks to built a permanent house.

What spirit in the face of such terrible adversity.

A lot has happened since that terrible event. She and her husband succeeded in building a brick house with a rental apartment attached for income. The AACDP helped to support Holliness in several years of nursing school and once she began to work, she sent her younger sister, who lost both of her young children in the terrible accident, to nursing school as well. I am sad to report that the drunk driver who destroyed the lives of 3 children and one adult was never brought to account. Such is justice for the poor.

Here is the finished house.