By Pelekelo Liswaniso
Penelope Masilokwa is a seven- year old, double orphan girl, who was born on November 28,1998 in Limulunga, one of the two compounds of the Litunga, the Lozi traditional King in the Western province.
The compound lies on high ground at the fringes of the Zambezi flood plain, 15 kilometres from Mongu, the provincial capital. The Litunga’s other compound is Lealui, which is used during the rainy season when the Lozi King moves during the Ku-omboka ceremony.
Penelope was a premature baby, born at six months of pregnancy, but survived, despite the fact that she was neither incubated nor taken to any hospital after such a birth. Penelope’s mother suffered great pains rooting from that childbirth and died when Penelope was only two years old.
Penelope’s father also died a year after his wife’s death and because of these losses, Penelope had to be taken care of by an over burdened grand mother, whose own husband had died after a long illness, leaving her with their nine children to look after.
The agony is that Penelope is also sick. Her illness started at the age of three and her health has continued to fail her. The major concerns of her suffering seemed to be coming from what looked like, swollen neck glands.
As time went on, her body was noticed to have stopped growing but no confirmed illness would be pointed at. Due to lack of funds, her caretaker has failed to date, to have her medically tested and examined, to ascertain whether or not her ill health is due to any disease or disorder.
As at now, Penelope’s grand mother has three double orphaned grand children, all less than eight years of age, nine children of her own to care for. Their only income comes from casual work and small commodities, which is sold on the market by some of the children who are school dropouts, most of whom are young girls.
There is also Inambao Ndiyoyi, a nine-year old boy, born on May 4, 1994 in a family of six, two boys and four girls. Inambao also lives in Limulunga royal village with his mother. Inambao and his other siblings are orphans, without a father. Their father died in 1999, when Inambao was only five years old. Inambao and three of his siblings live with their mother in great poverty. To feed the children, Inambao's mother depends on the little she can grow in between her illnesses, and the food does not meet their daily needs.
Inambao’s school attendance is generally good, although at times when he has nothing to eat he would miss school and go fishing to help his household find food. He also has very few clothes and usually goes round in torn and dirty clothes.
Despite, the lack of adequate food, clothing and the fact that Inambao is going through many other hardships his school work is very good, many times he tops his class during mid and end of term tests.
Inambao loves school and continues to do well in class; the only concern is Inambao’s mother’s ill health. Inambao’s mother’s ability to provide food for the family, even the little that she does, would without doubt be reduced as, the children’s demands increases. The fact is that the bigger they get the more food they require, their size of clothes cost more each year that passes and school demands also increases with time.
Such poor families are a common feature in Western province and hundreds of young people such as Penelope and Inambao, trudge the Barotse plains daily in squalor and almost scavenging for survival.
Like most parts of Western province, Limulunga is hard hit with disease, illiteracy, malnutrition and squalor, denying the local people and children the basic human necessities, despite the wealth of the abundant natural resources of the Zambezi River close by.
Because of poverty, most orphans like Penelope are less likely than are other children to be able to go to school or to have access to adequate health care. They are also more likely to live in perpetual poverty and to be malnourished. They are more likely to engage in hazardous labor, including commercial sex work that in turn exposes them to greater risk of HIV infection.
Orphans like Penelope, have no choice but to form child-headed households in which older children raise their younger brothers and sisters. Child-headed households, weakened by HIV/AIDS, are among the most economically vulnerable in Zambia and such children end up suffering multiple psychosocial problems. A large number of them, deprived of proper parental guidance have actually been left disadvantaged, vulnerable, and under-educated without hope and opportunity.
Nonetheless, hope is not completely lost for the young people of Limulunga because the old American tradition of helping others help themselves is knocking at Limulunga Community School to help overcome extreme poverty in the area.
An ambitious programme to provide education, health, clean water, food and care for the young people including orphans was unveiled during the Earth Week, which commenced on May 22, 2006, and climaxed during the Africa Freedom Day celebrations on May 25, 2006.
On that day Limulunga Community School (LCS) held celebrations under the theme: FREEDOM FROM DISEASE AND POVERTY through cleanliness, clean water and better sanitation as well as the ERADICTATION OF ILLITERACY.
By combining learning and doing, The LEAGUE, a US based non-profit organization, was, through the Mukola Memorial Trust, at Limulunga Community School, sharing skills to assist the local communities overcome some of the vagaries of poverty and illiteracy.
The LEAGUE facilitated acquisition of materials worth $2,000 that included cleaning tools (wheelbarrows, rakes, spades, hoes, slashes) and seedlings, plants and food drinks for the Earth Day activities. Pupils including Penelope, Inambao and many other disadvantaged children, led by their parents and teachers, cleaned up the school and were exposed to new skills in child education.
Limulunga Community School was conceived and established by Princes Mbuywana Mbikusita-Lewanika in 1999 out of a dream or idea of reaching the handicapped youth in the Limulunga Royal village and the surrounding community.
The idea was welcomed by Mukola Memorial Trust, three churches (The Limulunga Baptist Church, New Life Church and the Church of Barotseland) and the community in general with the sole purpose of providing free basic primary education (from Grade 1 to 7) to orphans and vulnerable children (OVC).
Embroidered in the program is the teaching skills training to the community’s youth, who, failed to enroll in colleges of higher learning nor to get employed for various reasons. Limulunga Community School focuses its attention mainly on the reduction of illiteracy, through its social and academic programs.
The school started in 2001 and has improved its performance through the efforts and sacrifice of various sectors of people. Locally, a large piece of land was given freely, where the permanent school structures have started to be built with the help of the local community.
Bubbling with confidence and happiness, Princess Mbuywana, who is also the School headmistress said now that the school was receiving more support, young people in Zambia particularly those in Limulunga were assured of a better future.
She paid tribute to The LEAGUE for facilitating the cleanliness drive as well as the initiative to include Limulunga Community School as part of the international pilot to teach pupils how to have a sustainable clean environment.
Princes Mbuywana explained that The LEAGUE is funded by the Kellogg Foundation and other generous donors. The beneficiaries from The LEAGUE include over 190 diverse U.S. schools in Michigan, New Jersey, New York, Tennessee and Texas with Limulunga Community School coming on board as one of the new beneficiaries.
And in a joint statement released during the celebrations, Princess Mbuywana and Ms Dipika Chopra, the Chief Operating Officer and International Partnerships, explained that The LEAGUE powered by Learning to Give, intends to make the world a better place to live. The main aim of The LEAGUE is to change lives of many people across the globe including Zambia.
The joint statement explained that Learning to Give, is a wonderful combination of lessons and events that teach pupils knowledge on why they should be a part of their community they live in and why they should act for the “common good” while providing volunteerism and public service
The LEAGUE intends to ensure that its model is globally relevant across all nations and plans to test the program with special partner schools in 15 different countries.
These international pilots will give The LEAGUE valuable suggestions and feedback from students, teachers and schools.
Limulunga Community School pupils were taught lessons about the scarcity of water in the world and environmental stewardships as part of the celebrations of Earth Day.
Western Province Assistant Secretary, Namukolo Kamona, who officiated on behalf of the provincial minister, Alex Luhila, commended Princess Mbuywana, for establishing the community school to help eradicate illiteracy saying the project was a testimony of how local communities can assist government in bringing about development through self-help projects.
Mr. Luhila also commended The LEAGUE for choosing Limulunga as a beneficiary and hoped that this would continue and spread to other areas of Zambia.
Among the guests who attended the celebrations included parents, heads of government departments, parastatal chiefs, managers of private enterprises, bank officials and other leaders.
Some of the highlights at the celebrations were that the Western Province was endowed with huge natural resources. Freshwater, from the Zambezi River, for example, brings life to the towns and plants and that it further provides the habitat for living things. The pupils were reminded that water is vital for drinking, sanitation, agriculture, industry and countless other purposes. This resource was, however, finite, scarce and vulnerable and that water actually sets the limits to development.
The LEAGUE’s website also explains that Learning to Give is an innovative educational initiative seeking to maintain and enhance a civil society as it educates the youth about philanthropy and the importance of giving their time, talent and treasure for the common good. This empowers the youth to take voluntary citizen action for the common good in their classrooms, their lives and their communities.
The programme was mooted on the premise that most schools in America and elsewhere have relied in the past on churches, families, friends and neighborhoods to teach children the value and significance of service and giving.
“We have assumed that our children know their heritage as citizens who do not need to be "empowered" by an outside agency, but who are born empowered as their inherent right of citizenship. It is sadly ironic that today, as emerging foreign democracies seek our assistance in establishing philanthropic traditions of their own, the traditional forces for teaching this ethic to children in the United States are eroding,
“The very skills and community cohesion necessary to offset forces of social disintegration, especially in an increasingly diverse culture, are skills and experiences found in the nonprofit or third sector. Yet an understanding of this sector remains a mystery to many American children,” the website reads.
The Council of Michigan Foundations and a Steering Committee of thirteen collaborating leaders in education, volunteerism, and nonprofit leadership have successfully completed a unique effort to write, field test, implement and disseminate high quality K-12 curriculum lessons, units and materials on philanthropy. Nurtured and piloted in Michigan, Learning to Give is proceeding with plans for a national and international infusion of this academic content into the core curriculum of schools.
“For a child to feel a sense of worth, he or she must feel that he belongs and that his existence is meaningful. And just as family provides the framework from which that sense of worth develops, the child’s formal education should include an understanding of the rights and responsibilities of individuals to the greater whole of society,”
The long-term goal of the project is to develop and replicate curriculum lessons, units, and materials for perpetuating a civil society through the education of children about the nonprofit or independent sector, and to achieve their commitment to private citizen action for the common good. The lessons, units, and materials that are a part of the curriculum, contain both academic content about philanthropy, and skill development activities, which involve students in giving and serving their communities.
“We’re living in a society where money has more power than God; where human life is worthless than someone’s jacket. We must teach our children about tolerance, unselfishness, and about giving. We need to teach them that sometimes we need to compromise or give up something that would be good for us as an individual so that what we’re choosing instead is good for all,” the website reads.
When a child has the courage to say, “I think this is wrong,” to defend and befriend the child who is isolated or outcast, and to feel empowered to care and respond when they encounter human need in their school, their community and their world, parents are deservedly proud that they have done their job well.
The basic strategy for the project is a grassroots teacher -led effort to infuse academic content about philanthropy and the service learning process into the curriculum. Classroom teachers in school systems serving a variety of communities are developing lessons, units, and materials, piloting, field-testing, and building authentic evaluation processes.
The teachers are in kindergarten through senior high school classrooms, in public and private schools, and in rural, suburban and urban settings.
The modules and materials are available under “Teachers” and “Resource Room,” on the Learning to Give website to be shared nationally and internationally without cost. During the process of writing and testing, national and international educators have been linked into the writing through the Internet, presentations at meetings, communications and informal networking.
Begun in 1997, this carefully designed program is poised for a national growth in Zambia. It has already generated an enthusiastic response from classroom teachers and school administrators at Limulunga Community School. Hope for young people like Penelope and Inambao is indeed on the horizon and one day they could have a better tomorrow not only for themselves but for their community at large.
