KONDWA DAY CENTRE FOR ORPHANS LUSAKA, ZAMBIA
LUSAKA, ZAMBIA
Zambia has a population of 11.5 million, of which there are an estimated more than 1 million orphaned children. The poverty in Zambia is among the worst in all sub-Saharan Africa. The national HIV/AIDS prevalence rate is estimated to be at least 16.5% (one of the highest in all sub-Saharan Africa and those most infected are in the 15-49 age demographic.) The average life expectancy is 38.1 years, and the infant mortality rate is 102/1200 births.
The Kondwa Day Centre for Orphans in Lusaka (Zambia’s largest city) is a non-profit, non-governmental, community-based organization, and a registered charity. The Centre is located in the Ng’ombe Compound of Lusaka, one of the city’s poorest and most densely-populated slum communities. The Centre provides care and support for orphans and vulnerable children within its community. These children are extremely impoverished, and facing dire threats of neglect and abandonment. Many of the children are severely-malnourished and in urgent need of immediate medical care and attention. The Centre’s founder and director, Angela Gondwe Malik, saw the need for such a place during her involvement with the Roma/Ng’ombe Community Home-Based Care (CHBC) project that cared for the chronically ill in their homes.
"During these home visits of the sick, I saw a lot of children orphaned, and some of them languishing because either both parents were sick or the mother or father was sick. It was then that I started to think of how I could help these children. I knew then as I know now that I cannot help all the children, but I felt then as I feel now that if I could help one or two and someone else helped one or two, together we could at least make a difference."
Currently, there are over 90 children between the ages of 3 and 8 years old attending the Kondwa Day Centre for Orphans, but the intake number of children is limited due to a critical lack of funds and resources. A typical day in the Centre involves basic meals, play and recreation, pre-school lessons and primary-school instructions, arts and crafts activities, as well as various psychosocial and other holistic support programmes. The Centre promotes Memory Approaches (also sometimes referred to as Memory Works), which help the orphans cope with the grief, loss and transition of HIV/AIDS. Memory Approaches aim to help improve communication with children, foster a supportive family environment for healthy child growth, and facilitate the development of social connectedness within the community. It helps empower children by strengthening their resilience, supporting their personal growth and social transformation, and paves the way for HIV/AIDS prevention and treatment programmes to be more successful.
Memory Approaches are practical, child-centred, community-led approaches that encourages children to communicate more openly about HIV/AIDS. This tool facilitates open communication between parents, and guardians and their children, making possible and setting up a safe space in which to contain the telling of a family and person’s life story. The general tools of psychosocial support through Memory Approaches include Memory Books, the Memory Box, Body Mapping and Quilt Patching. The Memory Book is the central tool in the memory work process. It is an approach to psychosocial support that nurtures communication within families around issues such as - family history, information about the parent or guardian’s health, parent or guardian’s counsel and legacy to their children and the children’s aspirations and childhood memories - captured primarily through writing and illustration. By writing Memory Books with their caregivers at the Centre, children are encouraged to share their experiences with each other, thus strengthening peer support among the children in the community. The Memory Box is basically a safe and secure container that holds valuable and meaningful items to be passed on to the surviving members of a family. Body Mapping is designed to help people living with HIV/AIDS , drawing from and recording their illness and pain, their personal struggles and treatment. Quilt Patching is another means of recording and preserving the memory of family members and their history. Memory Approaches, furthermore, help family and community members better understand and become more sensitive to the realities of people living with HIV/AIDS.
The Kondwa Day Centre for Orphans also organizes and supervises camps for its children, providing a playful and relaxed environment for the children to speak out and express their fears and concerns. Finally, the Centre also assists an additional 30 children within the community with basic educational and study needs, such as school uniforms, books, and other related necessities.
Our goal at Project ChildCare Foundation is to support the courageous and untiring work of the volunteers and staff at the the Kondwa Day Centre for Orphans by providing funding and resources in hopes that the Centre will be able to care for its children, bringing about real change and sustained improvements in their lives, as well as reaching even more orphaned and vulnerable children living within the community.