DVRA Supports Project in Kaoma, Zambia
For the past two years, the DVRA has been making donations to a project in Kaoma, Zambia. The village of Kaoma is very small and very rural. There are 12,000 people living there with an average income of a dollar a day.
Into this small village, a team of people from the United States journeyed this past spring.
The group was led by Lynn Twitchell, a neighbor of DVRA Board member Ginni Griffith, and the founder of a group called WISE (Women’s Initiative for Strength and
Empowerment).
Lynn organized the visiting group to help the people of Kaoma with their school, their water supply, boys’ and girls’
orphanages, and to aid their women, who are talented and needed an outlet for the products that they are able to produce.
Since its founding, WISE has built rooms on the school and provided books and school supplies for the students there. They were able to build several buildings for a Women’s Center where the women make baskets and clothing, which the WISE group purchases and sells in the United States. All profits are returned to the women of Kaoma for the Center. WISE has provided
wells for the Kaoma school and in another small village. These wells change the lives of the people who live there.
This year DVRA Board member, Ginni Griffith, and her husband, Bill, went to Kaoma with a team and lived and worked in the community and at the school. It was a life -changing experience for them. They found the people to be warm, loving and most appreciative of what they have and how much they have been helped by the WISE group. DVRA donations
are being used to purchase books for the classrooms, many of which are written by Zambian authors. These titles
encourage the students to see their potential for writing. Other donated books bring the world to the students and they are delighted to learn about other countries and their cultures.
Ginni had the opportunity to read with the students at the Shishikanu school. The
children learn to speak English in school. In fact, English is the official language in Zambia. The students speak Losi also, so it was interesting for Ginni to learn some of their language as she met with the
students in 4th through 9th grades. The challenge was greater for those in the
lower grades who had had less experience with English, but was quite easy with the upper grade students.
DVRA hopes to continue the relationship with Kaoma and knows that our support is greatly appreciated by the people there. It is rewarding for the group to have a personal connection with people who live in a completely different world.
For more information or to find out how to support WISE, visit http://wisezambia.org.
