What do Kids want? - By John

This afternoon I visited George compound to interview a bunch of kids about what their needs are. Chisomo, one of our MCC partners, is thinking of starting an outreach ministry in this area of town, and instead of barging in and telling people what they would do for them, they decided to take the more thoughtful approach and ask what people wanted instead, and this is where I was helping out. George compound is a pretty poor part of town, poor even in the standards of the local slums. There is no running water anywhere, no sewerage, and limited and sporadic electricity, so if you want to find poverty it's a pretty good place to start looking.

A couple of weeks ago we interviewed the ladies of the community to ask for their feedback, and it was pretty interesting. What they wanted was consistent and inexpensive food and access to education for their children, all other things coming in a distant second. Of course, all this boils down to having monetary resources. We were wondering if the children would feel the same way, so we set out to a local church for our meeting.

I was expecting about thirty kids to show up, instead we had over 80, from four or five year olds to sixteen year olds. It was pretty noisy when we got there, but it was fun talking to the children, luckily I had an interpreter with me.

The children were happy to participate

After a good question and answer period a few interesting observations emerged. While most of the kids have regular meals, most of them also miss a day of meals quite regularly, perhaps as often as once a week. Most of them don't eat three meals a day, two is more likely. They all LOVE nshima, but they all love biscuits (cookies) even more, so this confirms that they are like children all over the world. They also all want to go to school, but many are prevented by poverty. In theory, Zambian government schools are free, but there are additional school fees levied by the Parent Teacher Associations for things like books which become an effective barrier to education for someone without money. There is also the problem that there are not enough spaces in the government schools for everyone, so the solution that emerges is community schools, which are outside the government system and run for profit or as a cooperative enterprise. Community schools charge a tuition, so if you can't afford it, you can't attend. It's pretty tough to hear a twelve year old talking about wanting to attend school but not being able to because they can't afford the uniform or the notebooks required.

It might be 35c outside,
but what this girl wants is to wear her fuzzy pink toque

After the meeting we gave the kids a soft drink and a pack of biscuits, they were pretty happy!

Hooray for soft drinks and biscuits!

... and hooray for a better Internet Connection!

We have been very blessed by working out a deal for a new internet connection at our house. One of our partners working on the community school computer project is a local Internet Service Provider (ISP), and in a kind of "you scratch my back and I'll scratch yours" deal we got hooked up a few days ago, what a difference. I'm happy to reciprocate by helping to set up software and do some training, which is part of the project. A big thanks to Nick and the crew at iConnect!