A woman sits remarkably upright and proud considering her frail and skeletal state holding an even more emaciated baby in her bony arms, her eyes dead with fatigue and resignation. We are sitting in a humblest of dwellings in the slums of Ngombe, Zambia with its dirt floors and rusted sheet metal for a roof. Slivers of light escape between the concrete blocks of the walls piercing through the darkness of the small room and I am able to see a small jumble of old and dirty clothes on the corner, the small tattered mattress where mother and child sleep. Another body lay inclined on the bed. A sister of the mother, also sick, unable to work, going to the only place she could go. There is absolutely no trace of food, but yet flies and beetles abound, creeping and flying about their business…the place is more a tomb than a home.

“They may need to move, as they are behind on their rent”, our interpreter says.

Rent? People have to pay for this, I ask myself incredulously…but they do. The interpreter tells me the sum and it is not measly even to a foreigner like me now accustomed to converting Canadian dollars to Kwachas and vice versa.

But this woman and this baby have absolutely nothing. “What if they can’t pay, what will happen to them?” I ask the interpreter.

She looks at me with knowing eyes and gives an almost imperceptible shrug. But it’s enough, and I turn away embarrassed by my naivete and helplessness.

Such is life and death in the bowels of the poorest neighbourhoods of Zambia…one of countless many in the continent of Africa.

I was in Zambia because of Project Childcare Foundation ( PCF)’s primary project in Lusaka, Zambia’s capital. As a member of the board and responsible for running its operations along with my fiancé and PCF founder, Gary Morales, we were there to do our Monitoring & Evaluation of the project itself and perform financial and operational audits and program quality reviews.

PCF is a small operation with an ambitious but simple vision: We wish to save orphaned, abandoned and abused children. Help build their lives till they become productive adults. Engage their community in their healing and growth as part of its own economic sustainability and social development.

Easier said than done, if you don’t consider the numerous risks and challenges.

Being a small charity with ambitious goals is akin to being a neighbourhood mom and pop store on the same block as a behemoth Wal-Mart. There is no massive distribution network, or enormous advertising budget, or deep wells of money to dip into. It’s about quality over quantity and laser beam focus on the end goal. Saving and helping one child, one project at a time, patiently, quietly and efficiently.

PCF began its journey with Africa in late 2006 …a sensible place to start given Africa’s seemingly endless struggle against disease, poverty and conflict but a questionable one for a Canadian charity our size. Back then, neither the Canadian government nor the Canadian public made it easy to raise and send funds abroad especially at the time when Africa has lost its trendy allure amidst charity fatigue and a volatile world economy that would plunge into a global recession a mere 24 months later. However, true humanitarianism and charity is never about what is easy or popular. It is about what is necessary despite the politics, opinions and Brangelinas of the times.

And so PCF began with a small group of smart, dedicated people who worked their behinds off to achieve charity status in record time….PCF has evolved since then. Directors, advisors and volunteers come and go but its raison d’etre remains, as does the vision and resolve of its founder, Gary S. Morales….a quiet man of intense faith and dynamic energy that belies his middle age. An individual with a promising career in art and education, only to give it all up to answer the calling of social work and public service. However, there is no better person I know better equipped to handle the rigour, emotional intelligence and humility of such a vocation. Certainly he is made of different stuff, as the many others who have followed similar paths.

Like Angela Gondwe Malik, the project director of PCF’s primary project in Zambia. An unassuming woman at first but whose happy spirit, practical sensibility and boundless energy makes her a life force difficult to overlook. Possessing the savvy of a political strategist, but beholds the heart of a saint. A grandmother ( and retired insurance claims officer) in her sixties, she accomplishes more in one day what others will take in a week or even two. She built Kondwa Centre, an orphan centre for abandoned, abused and vulnerable children in response to the increasing misery that the scourge of AIDS, disease, poverty, apathy and neglect afflicting the poorer areas of her neighbourhood.

There was no reason for this elder woman to give up her comfortable life to undertake such a herculean challenge, but this she did expanding her orphan centre from 30 children to nearly 100 in just four years. If this fails to impress, she also managed to build a special home for traumatized girls and an elementary school with a communal farm that grows a variety of fruits of vegetables feeding the school children and employing the surrounding community.

I met Angela in November 2010 at the most recent monitoring and evaluation visit by PCF to review the projects she had lovingly and worked so diligently to come to fruition. It was my first trip to Zambia, or Africa for that matter, and she is the one of the many reasons I will return and what fuels my growing fascination with this vast continent of emerging nations in various stages of decline and rebirth.

From what I have read and heard from every writer or person that has visited Africa, a common observation punctuates their experience. Africa is a place of perplexing and often frustrating paradoxes, a continent of contradictions that intrigues and eventually seduces the visitor with its enigmatic nature. It is both a frightening and yet magnificent place, full of stunningly beautiful, proud and generous people some of whom walk with angels and some who conspire with devils. It is foreign and exotic but somehow familiar and real, connecting with the soul to the point one feels that they were once there before.

Indeed, we have in one sense been all there before since all of mankind bears part of their DNA from one African mother. However, this cradle of civilization has managed to elude its rightful place in the world in the often misguided quest to regain its once historic greatness. Despite billions of aid in this new and last century, the scars of colonialism and tribalism have obscured the way to progressive and effective leadership, governance and economic order.

There are pockets of wealth, here and there from nations who have managed to make use the vast resources of their land, developing their economy and participating in global trade…but all seem far from the standard benchmark of true prosperity: political stability, economic sustainability, well maintained infrastructures, a healthy, educated and working populace. There are no safety nets for the poorest of the poor and the sickest of the sick. The innocent have suffered the darkest of inhuman atrocities. Corruption is a mainstay of politics and often renders foreign aid and charity as a futile and wasteful exercise.

And yet, you will see within the people, particularly in the women and children, a sense of joy, a spiritual faith, and an enduring hope that they shall overcome. There is no time for self-pity, for there is so much work to be done…there is enough to worry about on a daily basis , there is no place for philosophers or pontificators.

However, there is plenty of room for transformational leadership grounded in the reality of the world and not by the glories of days past, or the hunger for violent revenge, or the supremacy of one tribe. There is certainly a place for charity and humanitarian work but it needs to be focused and specifically targeted and entrusted in community leaders with integrity, vision and tireless work ethic. And these very same leaders need to embrace sustainability…to develop other leaders to pass on the legacy of their work, to heal, improve and enhance what was started and to carry on for those who will go after them.

I understand now why PCF began its work in Africa. There is no better place to begin. There is no worse place in greater need. It is the best place to learn, to help, to give with wisdom and a hopeful heart. If you understand Africa, you will have achieved what is equal to a doctorate in the humanities, in foreign relations, in global economics, and in international law and political systems. When you do work in Africa in service of its people and its children, you will have accomplished what true leaders strive to learn…the art of empathy, the call to purposeful action, the need to serve for no other purpose than to serve… without ego, without nationalistic borders, without credit, without regret.

 

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