Jeff Morgenthaler's
Zambia Children's Village Project Page
My Thoughts
As you probably know, the adult population of Africa has been
decimated by AIDS, leaving a large population of orphans (many of whom
also have AIDS). As we learned from our host, Bishop Greg Chetan of the Fire-Baptized
Church in Zambia
who himself is an orphan, traditional African culture absorbs orphans
into the extended family. In fact, traditionally, there are no words for
"cousin," "aunt," or "uncle," since they were all synonymous with brother/sister,
mother, and father. But, western culture has made inroads into the traditional
African family model. Families are now spread apart and more autonomous.
Furthermore, with upward of 25% of the population HIV positive, even if extended
families were as cohesive as they once were, they would unlikely be able to
support the orphans left by the high death rates. Also compounding the problem
is a weak government (unfortunately too common in Africa, though Zambia is
better than some), often unable to pay its own civil servants, much less
support an infrastructure with social services. As a result, the kids often
turn to the streets and age-old businesses like pick-pocketing and prostitution
to support themselves. Indeed, when I parked out in front of the grocery
store in town, I had to pay rent of 500 Qwacha to the kids so they wouldn't
steal the bottles in the back of the truck (500 Qwacha = $0.10).
Against this problem, the Fire Baptized churches of Zambia have
mounted a well-planned attack. Their idea, which has been used in similar
projects throughout Africa, is to create communities, Children's Villages,
designed to be extended families for orphans. Each Children's Village
is composed of 3-6 buildings for the kids, with a primary house mother
(ideally a widow with children of her own in the group) and an assistant
house mother who preferably would be part of the project long-term, but
could be a foreign worker on a few-month assignment. Additional buildings
in the compound would be a large multi-use room and a house for the superintendent
of the village. The kids would attend local public schools (which are free
up to grade 3--or maybe 6, I forget) in Zambia. Although outside support
would always be appreciated (see below), the villages are designed to be
as self-supporting as possible, with the kids making craft items (primarily
bead-work) for sale locally, and perhaps on the Internet. The older kids
would learn trades, such as farming which would further support the Village.
Construction began on the first Children's Village in the fall
of 2001. Because of generous financial support of the project by Bristol Christan Fellowship
and excellent project management by the primary contractor, Alex Mwasa,
the project progressed rapidly, particularly by African standards. After
a few short months, the first building was complete and the second was taking
shape. We arrived about 6 months after the project began to the scene shown
on in my photojournal. With or team
of 19 people from the US and UK, we nearly doubled the number of workers
on the project. In the two weeks we were there, the combined Team Zambia
put almost all of the finishing touches on the second building, including
outside plaster work, door and window frames, draft ceiling, cement floors,
tile work, plumbing, and electrical.
As can be expected from any trip to another culture, we learned
a lot. This was a particularly fruitful trip in that regard, since we
were nearly equal in number to the Zambia construction workers and worked
side-by-side with them for nearly two weeks! The official language in
Zambia is English, which also helped (though, like most of Africa, tribal
languages are spoken in preference to the official national language).
Probably the most valuable lesson learned is that people across the world
are not so different as you might think. When you visit another culture
(this makes my 7th distinct world culture), look for commonality. And,
if you do talk about "my" culture and "your" culture, make sure you spent
at least 90% of your time talking about the similarities, otherwise you
risk building walls rather than bridges.
Jeffrey P. Morgenthaler
2003-04-26