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Back in Zambia

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Zambia Emergency Drought Response - January 2020 Carl returned to Zambia early in January as an International Relief Manager (IRM) to respond to the drought and severe food insecurity. This project is providing food to 91,662 beneficiaries in the districts of Gwembe, Kazungula, and Shangombo. World Vision is undertaking a direct implementation in Gwembe and Kazungula, while Carl is working with World Renew and their partner, the United Church of Zambia, to implement in Shangombo. Each community elected a Community Advisory Committee (CAC) to select beneficiaries who most met the beneficiary selection criteria, to communicate information from the project team to the selected beneficiaries in their section, to help manage complaints, and to assist with the distribution process. The project team continues to work closely with the CAC members to build their capacity in running the monthly food distributions in their communities. The second round of food distributions to the ten comm...
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Beneficiary Stories

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A few weeks ago, Carl and I had the opportunity to go into the communities again to hear stories from the beneficiaries. It was an honour to hear about how their lives have been impacted by the food distribution project. We have been reminded that even in times of hardship, God is present and he continues to be faithful in the lives of his people here in Zambia. Below are a few of the stories we heard. Doreen Doreen and her husband have a household of six, a 14-year-old, 11-year-old, 5-year-old, and a 5-month-old. She says thank you and is so grateful for the project because she and her family were struggling, only able to eat one meal each day. Now, with the assistance provided through this program, they eat twice a day - lunch and supper. Doreen and her husband had cultivated their field but did not reap anything. Without the food she has received each month, she is concerned about how her family would have been able to make it through this difficult season. They are no...
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The First Distribution

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It was exciting to see the trucks arrive at the warehouse in Mwandi Village throughout the week before the first distribution. In the end, the warehouse was full of enough food to share with 2,000 households. The food came from the northeastern part of Zambia, where unlike the Western Province, the drought is not being experienced. Local men from the village were hired to offload the trucks and carefully stack the food commodities in the warehouse.  The following week these men loaded the food onto the trucks that would drive to the recipient communities. Each truck had the specific quantity designated for that community. The household ration provided in this project, based on what an average family of seven would eat, includes two 25 kg bags of maize meal, 10 kg of beans, 2.5 L of cooking oil, and 500 g of salt each month over a five-month period. This ration equates to approximately 54% of the family's daily energy needs. What a privilege it was to watch food being delivere...
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Community Meetings

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Three weeks ago, we headed into each community for what we called the first community meeting. It was both an exciting and exhausting experience. We are so very grateful for all your prayers that have supported us over these weeks. People in the communities were notified by word of mouth and announcements were made in each of the churches inviting people to come to this meeting. For the most part people walked to the designated meeting places which in some cases took up to three hours. Although people were told that the meeting would begin at 0800 hours, there is a thing here called "African Time," meaning that designated times are much more flexible than we experience in Canada. That being said, we often arrived well after 8 am and waited for enough people to arrive before starting our meeting. At some meetings, the people sang and danced. Hundreds of people attended each meeting. The venue of the meeting was always under the shade of one or more large trees. P...
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Preparing for Next Steps

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We have now been in Zambia for just over a month and I thought I would share a quick update. We are so thankful for how God has cared for us and blessed us with new things to experience and learn each day! Although we anticipated that we would be able to spend our first 90 days in Zambia as visitors, we found out that was not the case. When we arrived, we were given a 30-day visa. It was not possible to renew the 30-day visitor’s visa. We were required to get a temporary working permit. After a number of visits to the local immigration office, multiple letters written on our behalf from both World Renew, and the United Church of Zambia, and finally a very long visit to the immigration office at the Namibia border, we were able to get the visas we needed which now allow us to stay until August 2. At that time, we will need to renew once again. We are thankful for the four to one funding that the project finally received on April 25th from the Canadian Foodgrains Bank (CFGB). Al...
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Our Welcome to Zambia

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As newly trained International Relief Managers (IRM) with World Renew's International Disaster Response team, Carl and I are excited to be on our first assignment. We are staying in Mwandi Village in the Western Province of Zambia. Together with our local partner, the United Church of Zambia (UCZ), our job will be to implement the Drought Response project in the Mwandi District. The Mwandi District has a population of about 30,000, the majority of whom are from the Lozi tribe.   The people we have met here in the village have been very welcoming and we are enjoying getting to know them. As part of our exchange of greetings as we pass and chat with people on the streets each day, we have been told a number of times, "You are welcome." In Zambia, the rainy season runs from November to April. Prolonged dry spells coupled with extreme high temperatures since the onset of rainy season has resulted in a devastating effect on farmers' crop performance. An assessm...
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