From Zim to Zam

We signed off from our last blog with the news that we were in Zambia and during this post we will provide a short update from that time where we spent just under two weeks with our friends, Chris and Rebecca Viola, and their family of four, who we first met in Uganda in 2015.

A child headed house hold wash their dishes
complete with a chicken taking a drink!

The Viola's moved out from their home in Texas to Kabwe, a mining town that sits around two hours north of Lusaka, in 2016 and set up and run a charity called 'Driven Ministries' who work with some of the most vulnerable people in that town, supporting children with sponsorship for them to attend school, a daily sports outreach at the piece of land that they have bought in one of the 'compounds' located to the south side of the town plus they are developing an old farmhouse which will become a place where they can host volunteers and run a hospitality training centre.

Moving from Zimbabwe to Zambia was quite an eye opener for us, from the empty shelves at Robert Mugabe airport in Harare to the bright lights of the showrooms tempting people to part with their hard earned cash for the latest Land Rover or Jaguar cars in Lusaka. That's not to say that Zambians are rolling in money but totally highlights the lack of investment and opportunities that have held back Zimbabweans for over three decades, however poverty is all relative as we were to see as we moved further into the rural areas of Zambia.

The first group of Zambians to have ever completed
'Leadership for Life'

We had been invited by Driven Ministries to share the Emerging Leaders - Leadership for Life programme which we have been using to bring personal mindset change to many people, mainly in South Africa and Madagascar, but also in Burundi, Uganda and most recently Zimbabwe. They had managed to gather around 70 local leaders, mainly pastors but also members of the local police and some of the people that they employ, who we shared the programme with over a total of four days in two separate groups.

The second group working out their 'Here to There'
during the training.

Once again it was wonderful to see those 'lightbulb' moments taking place within those we were sharing with as we took them on a journey towards hope by introducing timeless leadership principles in an interactive and fun way which helps people to remember the 'nail it' points and then apply them to their lives. 

We starting with the fact that it's our poor ways of thinking that keep us from reaching our amazing potential and that we need to see ourselves as a leader of our own lives, then applying those principles to their finances, moving on to the reason a leader exists is for the benefit of others and encouraging them to start a project that will impact the lives of their community, and finally we look at how they lead themselves within their team/s.

The view from atop of 'Prayer Mountain'

Kabwe is most famously known to be one of the most polluted places in the world due to the amount of mining that has taken place, especially Zinc and Lead, which still takes place illegally, such is the demand and the need for people to 'make a living'.

The surrounding countryside is very flat but we did spend a morning climbing a local hill, known as prayer mountain, which gave us stunning views over the local communities, many of whom still live in simple mud huts with straw roofs which brought home the poverty that is rife in the rural areas even if Lusaka has its sparkling lights. 

Sports outreach Zambian style

We also had an opportunity to share some of the leadership principles with the hundreds of children that attend the sports outreach, it was fantastic to see a model similar to that which we had used at the Village of Hope in South Africa being used to bring hope by engaging the children and young people who live in the 'compound' (common term for a more formal area similar to a township in South Africa) near the 'Driven' sports field.

A home visit with the Violas

Chris had just returned from a fundraising trip in the USA and had raised funds for Driven to send more children to school and it was great to join their team as they made five home visits to the boys and their families, many of whom come from 'child headed' homes or single parent families who struggle to find the funds to send all the children under their care to school.

Typical compound mud brick home

The meetings with the families were very formal affairs, we were all invited to sit down, mostly outside with the local community gathered around listening to the introductions and reason for our visit. 

Once again the poverty that these families live in hit us, very simple homemade brick homes, those bricks made from the mud that surround their homes, which were similar to those we had seen in the much more densely populated slums in Kampala, again no running water or electricity.

A delivery of local mud bricks!

Being the dry season the land was parched and any signs of the farming which we had seen in the much more fertile soil of Zimbabwe were none existent and one wonders how the people survive until the rains come to provide much needed water for people to grow the maize meal which makes up much of their poor diet and leaves Zambia as one of the most vulnerable to malnutrition in Africa with children under five and women being those who suffer most from this surely curable issue. 

The Viola children made us feel very welcome in their home and along with their huge Ridgeback/Great Dane mix dog, more like a horse really, we had some fun in their lovely garden which was blessed with many fruit trees which attracted lots of beautiful butterflies and even a family of Eagle Owls, the parents of which we saw and heard in the branches and who were caring for two chicks which we were able to see in the 'V' of one of the trees in the garden.

Downtime with a run around the dairy farm at sunset

Their home sits next door to the Zambian Operation Mobilisation base where their children are able to join with others to play football and basketball, and also next door to a dairy farm, on which myself (Tim) and Maz were able to run around in the cooler mornings or sunset filled evening skies.

Hailing from Texas the Violas were keen to tempt us away from our now near on Vegan and definitely vegetarian diet to try some typical Texan food, which involved 'scones and gravy' for breakfast and obviously an American style BBQ on their Weber, unfortunately we didn't get time to sit around a traditional african Braai but maybe that will come on a return visit! 

We made some great friends with the Driven employees, including 'coach' Chris and Precious, who run the sports outreach, and Jimmy, Akim and Moses the garden team plus Athetha who all attended our training and whom we are excited to hear of how they are applying the principles into their own lives and the projects that they are looking to set up.

Once again we were able to share the programme in English, as we did in Zimbabwe, which enabled us to really engage with those attending, however we see the success of the work that we are doing is to train up local people, as we have done in Madagascar and Uganda, to share the programme in their own language to their own people groups so we are already planning return trips to both these needy nations in early 2019, of which we might need some help with funding!

Should you wish to invest in our work then please follow the link to our PayPal account and or email us at timw@emerging-leaders.net for more info.