In June I visited a group of partners across Zambia. The first one I want to share with you is a partnership in a village called Chaba. Chaba is on the north side of Lake Bengweulu. I was based in the town of Samfya, which is on the south side of the lake. Now, Lake Bengweulu is a huge lake, about 10 miles wide by almost 50 miles long. There are two ways to get to Chaba. One way is by road and can take at least a day to get there because of the bad road. The other way is by boat across the lake. The boat trip across is supposed to take about 5-6 hours. However, it ended up being about an 8 hour boat ride due to heavy winds. The boat was about 20 feet long and had an 20hp motor on the back that ran about like a 10-15hp motor when it was working. But after a long day we made it to Chaba.
The partnership in Chaba supports orphans to go to school. The great thing about this partnership is that later this year they will install and begin operating a rice mill. The goal of this mill is two fold.
1. To assist the local rice farmers. The issue is when they shell the rice. They pound the rice with a large club and it actually pummels the majority of the rice. Perhaps up to 60%. While that may be OK for home consumption it makes it useless to try and sell. With the implementation of the rice mill farmers will now be able to harvest their rice in a way that will allow them to sell. This will enable the farmers to generate some income for their families.
2. In addition, by running the mill, our partners will be able to generate income to further fund the orphans and become less dependent on outside support.
It will be great to see how these next few years go.
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