THE  HISTORY  OF  HOPE

It is about the children.

In 2003 one of the founders of Africa Hope traveled to Zambia and was disheartened to see the hundreds of orphans running the streets of the capital, Lusaka.  Thin, dirty, and in ragged clothing, they begged and prostituted for money and food, because in a country overwhelmed by poverty and the HIV/AIDS epidemic, there were few resources to care for them.  After leaving Zambia, she pondered, from this distance, and with the enormity of the problem, what could we possibly do to help?  Then we were given a connection to a small group of Zambians

who had initiated a project in the rural area about 40 kilometers north of the capital .  In February of 2004 five from Grand Junction traveled to meet these people, see what they were doing, and decide if we would join their project. 

They were running a three-room community school called Upeme, meaning “hope”, built with funds from the American Embassy, teaching 125 children each day, with the help of three untrained teachers, and housing 35 children at night on the bed-bug-infested floors of the school.  Food sources were inconsistent and inadequate.

Turbid drinking water was collected from a hole dug in a field, twenty minutes-walk away.  Latrines were unsanitary.  We agreed, how could we not help? Africa Hope was born.

 In the next few months, we contracted to have a well bored to provide clean, fresh water, and to have sanitary latrines built at Upeme.  In 2005 a group traveled to begin construction on the orphanage, which was completed in 2006.  The garden was enlarged, and now provides fresh vegetables to the 55 children who reside at the orphanage.  A local grain company, National Milling, has partnered to provide ground maize for the staple food called nshima for the resident children, and the World Food Bank now provides enriched ground soy which is served daily as a hot cereal to all the 200 children who now attend the community school.  And this year’s bountiful harvest of maize at Upeme will ensure that all the children will have a daily meal at the community school, no matter what.  Now, on a full stomach, with trained teachers and textbooks at the school, the children can successfully learn.

There is much left to do at Upeme to develop a self-sustaining project, but the children live in a safe, physically and emotionally nurturing environment.  And the answer to the question is, this is what we can do to help.