In
May 2003 Kevin Gilbert appealed to his friends in
Australia and around the world to support the orphans in the Chibobo
region of
Zambia. Part of his initial email is included below. You will note how
moving
the account is and the practical nature of Kevin and Abeauty's vision
for the
support of this community. To find out more information on the way the
project
developed, click on the link at the end of the email.
KEVIN
GILBERT’S INITIAL EMAIL & VISION, MAY 2003
now we
come to the main point of my letter to you all. Those closest to me
will know
that I have been talking recently about involving myself possibly in a
school
for orphans here in Zambia. Last night (Saturday 9 May), the BBC World
service
reported a statistic on Zambia which shocked me – the average
life expectancy
of a Zambian has dropped now to 33 years! When I came here last year,
it was 36
or 37 years. AIDS is decimating the population – there are
funerals in Serenje
each week, in Kabwe (the largest regional town) nearly every day. 20%
of the
population was reported last year as being HIV+ (what it is now is
anyone’s
guess). There is talk of a ‘missing generation’, of
many
children orphaned by
loss of both parents, of these orphans now being ‘in the
care’ of relatives
Friday
last, I spent a night at Chibobo village – this is where a
local
Zambian,
Abeauty Chibuye, has established (from his own initiative and hard work
since
1993, plus some donations by Christian Aid in UK) a village in the
centre of an
impoverished rural community. Here at the village, is a hammer-mill to
mill
maize into meal (from which the staple food
‘nshima’ is
cooked – like a thick
tasteless porridge; it is eaten with local vegetables
‘relish’ (tomatoes,
onions, beans) – they eat this day in, day out (when there is
maize to mill!).
A manual oil-press is used to press sunflower oil or peanut oil. Locals
pay
cash or barter product to use this equipment. There is a small shop
selling
essentials like milk & sugar; a well, from which local pump
water
manually.
There is a classroom for pre-schoolers (which doubles as a local
church), a
house for volunteers, and a canteen under construction to feed local
orphans.
Fields full of crops will help sustain the community in times of
drought and
also allow some more income to be generated to improve local services
etc (e.g.
no health clinic). Abeauty’s goal is for the local community
to
eventually
sustain themselves with minimum outside donor help. (a few of us
volunteers,
and some newspaper articles recently support our views, that Africa has
become
too dependent on donor-aid – it is now like an industry, and
local ‘fat cats’
drive around in beautiful 4x4 vehicles (World Vision etc) –
it is
no wonder
that it has been reported that most of a donation to World Vision is
gobbled up in admin costs, little actually receiving those really in
need.
to
me…my initial idea of an orphanage was like the
‘institution’ model – I saw a
caring place for those children without parents, a place where they
could be
fed decently, clothed and educated . I have now abandoned this idea
after
talking with locals, ex-pats and Zambians. I have become
convinced that
it is essential to maintain the link between whatever
‘carers’ (i.e. extended
family) exists and therefore rather to devote efforts to assisting the
carers.
How to do this best has led me to visit Abeauty and his community. It
was my
second time at Chibobo – this time, I realised that all my
plans
were in my
head – I had not even visited an orphan in his/her natural
setting…so, at short
notice I asked to be taken to visit 3 ‘nearby’
orphans. A
neat list of 103
orphans was brought to me and the 3 closest selected. I was escorted to
their
homes by the local teacher. Please try to imagine the following:
a
beautiful bushed area of Africa, fairly large trees, elephant grass
taller that
me. Dusty paths (the nearest tarred road is some 15 km away, serenje
some 30 km
distant). We walked barely 100 metres to the first home – a
typical mud and
thatched roof African hut. The teacher was my interpreter –
the
male head
appeared (a man of about 35 years) and welcomed us. I explained that I
was
trying to learn more about orphans – he called his children
– there were 6 of
his own, and 3 ‘orphans’ from his dead
sister’s
family. All were very poorly
clad in dirty, torn and dusty poorly-fitting clothing, particularly the
orphans. One orphan sat there as we talked. and then pulled up his
trousers leg
to reveal a knee that had been bleeding badly. It looked painful and
infected –
he apparently had fallen earlier. The ‘father’
explained
how tough it was
feeding the additional 3 children. We then went another 50 metres to
find the
carer, an old lady , the grandmother looking after her dead
daughter’s 2
children. Imagine an old emaciated lady, dirty and exhausted, holding a
hoe
with which she would try to cultivate crops to feed her children. There
is no
social security in Zambia – poverty, disease (malaria
especially,
and now AIDS)
death is everywhere. I thought of how I would feel, having outlived my
child,
and now trying to care for grandchildren with absolutely nothing.
Nearby, her
grandson sat, a child of about 4 with infected eye covered with a swarm
of
flies. As we left, I wept inside, not so much for the dead, but for the
living.
That old grandmother, and that poor child – if he is HIV
positive, his chances
of survival on poor diet are not good. And these 3 within a few metres
of the
centre – what about the rest of Zambia???? And so on to the
third
family – no
real change to the story except that, once again, a grandmother was
trying to
look after 2 children of her dead son & wife – one
was able
to attend
school, the other could not because there were no clothes for her. And
we are
in the 21st Century!!! I thought education was the answer, but now I am
confronted by basic food and clothing needs (teachers, remember
Maslow’s
Pyramid!!) What can we do???
is an
alternative: imagine that those ‘orphans’ spend
the
school week living at
the local community centre at Chibobo – imagine that here
they
are clothed, fed
and educated – not fed anything spectacular (just local
nshima);
not taught
anything exceptional (just school and play, but educated to think with
initiative…); clothed with nothing fancy, just second-hand
throw-aways from the
1st World as the others wear. Imagine that the children go home on
weekends and
school holidays so that they maintain the link with their extended
families and
do not become institutionalised. Imagine that these children are cared
for in
this way during those crucial years from age 6-7 to 11-12. Imagine that
many
grow up healthy and reasonably well educated. Imagine that others die
of AIDS
after a few years, but that they live longer due to a better diet than
they
would have, and they have some years of play with friends. Imagine that
the
extended family has better resources as a consequence and can support
their own
offspring better, plus give quality time to the orphans when they
return home
on weekends.
imagine
a family (or individual) in your ‘First World’ who
is
willing to go without 2
McDonalds meals a month – for the sake of supporting one
orphan
on an on-going
basis. Yes, imagine that this Aus$30 or 10 pounds or 150rands per month
(or
Aus$1 per day) will feed, clothe and educate one of these orphans in
Chibobo
district – imagine that the donor family has complete
confidence
in the person
distributing their $30, confidence that nearly 100% of the money
reaches the
child selected. Imagine if we had a ‘100 Orphans’
Project
which sustained these
Chibobo orphans – the entire local community would benefit
since
food would be
purchased from the locals, teachers employed. Imagine if this small
candle
flame in the darkness became a source of light and inspiration for
other local
communities throughout Zambia…?
Kevin Gilbert's
Original Email
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