Last week, the highest fundraisers and most regular participants of the COINS 3 Peaks Challenge made their way to Zambia to witness first hand the projects that the newly formed COINS Foundation will support with funds raised.  Worthy representatives from COINS, Geoffrey Osborne, Kier, Lovell, Oracle, Orange and Ringway, were awarded places on the COINS sponsored trip.

Zambia was selected as the focus of attention for this year’s fund raising efforts because the overwhelming majority of Zambians are poor; 73% live below the poverty line with more than half of those living on less than $1 a day.  One in five children die before the age of five, 10% die before they reach one year.  The HIV/AIDS epidemic has wiped out nearly an entire generation leaving many orphaned and vulnerable children (OVCs).  The medical provision and services are woefully inadequate with only seven physicians for every 100,000 people.

The group had a very full and emotional schedule to cope with – the tour started in Lusaka the capital of Zambia with a visit to a rural school project supported by World Vision.  The school was built to serve OVC children who were unable to attend school regularly due to the distance from their homes.  The children would walk for six miles each way and in the rainy season the route would be completely blocked by floods and prevent attendance for almost four months.  The new school is was now providing and education for over 200 children with 12 teachers and volunteers supporting and so providing some hope and opportunity to these vulnerable children.

The following day the group donned hard hats, gloves and safety goggles to participate in building two Habitat for Humanity homes in the community of Chazanga, located north of Lusaka City.  The settlement of more than 200,000 people of predominantly female headed households, endures a high level of poverty and generally represents the poorest proportion of the population. There is a high rate of diseases such as malaria and dysentery among children, with 90 percent of households using basic unprotected pit latrines, which pollute the groundwater drawn from the shallow wells. The majority of households take care of Orphans and Vulnerable Children whose parents have died because of HIV/AIDS - the average household size is six persons or more.

Since the inception of the Habitat for Humanity Zambia OVC Project in Chazanga, a total of 116 houses have been constructed while 73 houses have been renovated. Over 794 Orphans and Vulnerable children have been served to date.

Two families were eagerly awaiting their new homes .... 

The Njobvu family, currently squatting in a neighbour’s mud hut: the heavy flooding in January, declared a national disaster in Zambia by President Mwanawasa, turned Yona’s mud house into a pile of rubble. Fortunately, Yona, his wife, and their two children were not harmed. Yona has been disabled and works occasionally as a tailor, his wife, Lorina, also has health problems and is unable to work. Their children, Precious (16 years) and Jenalla (13 years) do both attend school.

Lucy Zulu, also a survivor of the recent floods, has been widowed and left to take care of five children; Lucy has struggled to provide shelter for her family. Her late husband died because of HIV/AIDS and Lucy is also infected. Although she is receiving anti-retroviral treatment, health complications from HIV/AIDS prevent Lucy from working full time to support her children.  She is also supporting her niece who is to ill to travel to the clinic to receive treatment for HIV/AIDS.

The two new houses which were built to the 8th course by the COINS teams will ultimatley offer a safe, dry, and permanent home for these families.

The final visit in Lusaka was to the newly open CURE International hospital.  Founded in 1996 by Scott and Sally Harrison, CURE set out to transform the lives of disabled children living in the developing world.  Scott, an orthopaedic surgeon, made numerous trips to Africa where he performed complex orthopaedic surgery on children who would have otherwise died or lived lives filled with pain and despair.

The Lusaka hospital is the 12th of its kind and is also committed to training nationals so that they may become the leaders of health care throughout the emerging world.  The COINS group enjoyed a tour of the impressive facilities here and met many the dedicated surgeons and staff, as well as the patients awaiting or recovering from treatment, along with their carers.  The group was also privileged to witness at close quarters surgery to realign the hip of a young boy to enable him to walk.

From Lusaka the group moved up to the Copperbelt region of Zambia to Ndola where they visited the established Kawama affiliate, Habitat for Humanity community and a school nearby for orphaned and vulnerable children.  After a very emotional welcome by the community with wonderful, joyous signing the group divided to spend time with the families and to hear their individual stories of tragedy and hope.

The final project to visit was the Kawama Widows and Orphans School Project where the very inspirational head, who had lost her husband in a mining accident and was supporting four children and four grandchildren, fully dedicated her time to establishing the school and inspiring other volunteers to help her.  The school now educates 228 children, in two hour slots per grade, between the hours and 7:00 am and 4:00 pm.

A final treat lay in store for the group with a final leg of the journey to Livingstone - one of the seven natural wonders of the world: Victoria Falls in full flow.  Here the group had time to reflect on all that they had witnessed over the previous days, whilst enjoying a safari drive, a trip down the Zambezi watching hippos wallow and for the less faint hearted a leap of 111m head first towards the narrow Zambezi gorge – the third highest bungee jump in the world.