As the pilot announced 20 minutes to landing in Lusaka, Zambia’s capital we glanced out of the window at the surprisingly green landscape. Met by the heat and a team from Habitat for Humanity we gingerly boarded a rickety coach. As we travelled through Lusaka to more rural parts, the contrast between the pockets of development, makeshift structures and waste land was very noticeable. The constant flow of people young, old, loaded with supplies, suited for work all walking along the road side kept our attention.

A briefing by Habitat for Humanity was our first real insight into the issues we were soon to witness. As well as a basic need for housing, it was clear that there was a real need for sustainable solutions in areas such as health, sanitation, water, income generation and education.

Our first project visit was a school in a rural area outside of Lusaka. This was a project implemented by an umbrella group RAPID, bringing together CARE International, World Vision, the Salvation Army amongst other NGOs to try to solve some of the issues HIV/AIDS was leaving behind. Working together the group were able to leverage far greater funding from aid agencies.

An adventurous drive into the bush negotiated well by our bus driver over the four wheel drive terrain delivered us to a school. The successful provision of this school had saved many of the 300 students a daily six-kilometre walk to school. Our tour of school, built at a cost of £175,000, revealed six classrooms, two teacher accommodation houses, a clinic and a set of pit latrines. This was incredible to see, for those in the group who had experience of UK school construction projects costing millions.

Our next experience and possibly the most rewarding was ‘build day’. We commenced block work on two houses; one for a grandmother who was caring for nine grandchildren orphaned by AIDS. Mixing mortar and block laying, under the watchful eye of Peter the local builder and twenty or more children. At the end of a sweltering but rewarding day we had constructed eight courses – half way to two homes.

Our third day took us to the CURE International hospital in Zambia, focused on transforming the lives of disabled children and their families in the developing world. The hospital accepted its first patients in February 2007 and has already completed more than 280 operations. There was a clear emphasis on training local Zambian surgeons and nursing staff. It was remarkable to compare these simple but effective operating theatres with those complex theatres we build in Kier PFI Treatment and Emergency centres in the UK. Ceramic tiled walls, trailing leads, no ducted positive pressure air supply and only small basic wall-mounted air conditioning units meant that the surgeons have to be incredibly skilled to prevent post-operation infections.

The final project visits were in North Lusaka one of the poorest parts of the county, the Copperbelt. Here we visited an established Habitat for Humanity community and spent time with some of the 300 families. It was important to understand the benefits that the simple block houses, costing in the region of £1,000 were offering this community.

We went on to spend time with the community children at the school established and supporting 238 children orphaned by HIV/AIDS. We joined the lessons, the learning was clear to see in their exercise books. The students enjoyed beating the visitors in a football penalty shoot out.

This was an experience none can prepare for – seeing with your own eyes and spending the time to gain greater understanding creates a significant paradigm shift in thinking and views on the world in which we live and creates a desire to do more to help.

Each year COINS organises and funds a field trip for those construction companies and individuals who have shown their dedication to the aims of the COINS 3 Peaks Challenge event by raising the most money that year or through consistent participation year on year. The aim of the trip is not just to reward their efforts but to show how those efforts can change forever the lives and well-being of communities.