In January-February 2020 (pre Covid) three Inverness County Cares members visited the site of the Kawambwa schools in Kawambwa and Mporokosa, Zambia. John MacInnis, Charlotte Rankin and Betty Jane Cameron personally paid for all their expenses and spent approximately a month working and living in the Kawambwa compound. Their trip provided Inverness County Cares (ICC) with a wealth of information and has promoted much interest, understanding and goodwill toward the Kawambwa project. This series of photographs and commentary will bring an understanding as to why we feel so passionate about the well being of these children.
Blessings is a nine-year-old boy, who, although living with Albinism, is full of life and has the potential to do great things. At the age of three, his parents separated, and Blessings’ mother moved away, leaving him with his father. At his young age, he realized that his home is not a happy one mainly because two of the children live with Albinism. Blessings says, “I can tell that the face of my father is ever sad I wonder if my father ever smiles and my mother stays in another village with my stepfather.” Blessings older brother, Albert, was taken away when he was young and did not know until later, that his parents had another boy with albinism.
Blessings has been shunned by his village and his interactions with anyone outside of his family has been restricted. Sometimes he would be permitted to go to a neighbouring house to play with young friends. They enjoyed traditional dances and games. One of these friends was, Jane, the same age as Blessings, who was in grade one at that time. She taught him the alphabet and some songs and some of the elders in the community noticed his potential since was able to quickly remember the alphabet, songs and stories.
At this time, he lived with his father and step mother, where according to Blessings, “No age was considered when it comes to work”. Blessings despite his young age and small stature, was expected to do the work of a much older person and was continually overworked and exhausted. His work schedule, “which was beyond my power” fetching water with a big bucket, weeding and slashing brush, left him so fatigued, he was unable to attend school or even study on his own.
As a child living with Albinism, working in the hot sun is life threatening. Blessings tells us “Honest, I really suffered when drawing water from the only borehole we have in the village. It is in an open space where sunlight shines directly on us as we wait our turn”. For anyone with albinism, the direct rays of the hot sun can lead to skin cancer lesions because of the lack of melanin on their skin. Blessings did not have access to sunscreen or protective clothing to shield him from the sun every day. The only way he could cope was to, “Cover my head with a piece of cloth or my old shirt”. From photos of Blessings, we can see he is already developing lesions in areas exposed to the sun.
According to Blessings, “One day a miracle happened in our home. A teacher gave homework to my step brother who was in grade two. He could not get the concept, but I got it and everyone was surprised”. His family began to realize his potential, and this coincided with the visit from
Mr. Simeo, who is pursuing his studies in education, with a focus on children with disabilities.
Mr. Simeo took a special interest in Blessings for he saw the potential in this overworked little boy. According to Blessings, his friend said, “From today I will accompany you in everything,” and again he lifted me and laughed. Inside my heart I was very happy because I wanted to see a man in the range of my father’s age with a smile on his face.”
From then on, he visited Blessings’ family and helped him in the fetching of water and other strenuous work. Blessings’ parents came to love his friend so much that he become part of the family. Due to this influence, his parents permitted Blessings to go to school with is friend, where he started teaching him simple mathematics. Mr. Simeo talked to Blessings’ father about taking him to a special school that could really enrich Blessings’ life and his father permitted Blessings to go to St Mary’s Special School in Kawambwa, which is 178 kms away from their home. There he found so much comfort with his loving and caring friends, teachers and care givers, some of whom also live with albinism. He started learning Braille was happy to study and work toward his educational goals.
His teacher, Madam Winifridah introduced him to computers which has ignited his curiosity toward technology and mechanical operations. His potential has been recognized and at this time, he can read, write, recite poems and dance. He is a dependable student who realizes the importance of education as a path toward his ambitions.
There are many more children in a similar situation as Blessings, but they are hidden away in villages, shunned by their people because of fear and superstition. St. Mary’s and St Odilia schools, the two schools of the Kawambwa Project, provide a haven for these children, where they can learn to cope with their disabilities and feel safe, valued and protected.
Inverness County Cares always welcomes new members. Individuals who wish to donate, can use the donate button on our website https://invernesscountycares.com
When using E-transfer, please include your mailing address for CRA tax receipts and a thank you. E-transfer address: [email protected]
or send a cheque to Inverness County Cares Box 99, Judique, NS, Canada, B0E1P0. Taxation receipts provided for USA and Canada.
TRANSPORTATION IS A GREAT CHALLENGE AT ST. MARY’S SPECIAL SCHOOL – KAWAMBWA.
St. Mary’s Special school serves children between the age of 5 to 25 years who come from diverse parts of Zambia. The school caters to children with multiple disabilities; blind and visually impaired, deaf, special needs and physically disabled. The present teaching staff also includes teachers with visual impairments; six totally blind, eight partially sighted and two teachers with albinism.
Mr. Chisembe Mwansa, one of the blind teachers, tells us how the school community must strive to accommodate staff and students with varying levels of visual impairment as well as physical and intellectual needs. The school must maintain and upgrade the infrastructure of the school grounds to protect the staff and students from the ever-present threat of kidnapping and abduction. This security extends beyond the walls of the school as the children must be protected on their long journeys to and from the school to their homes in remote villages, towns, and cities.
“I’m a blind teacher and have lived in this area for many years. I have been teaching at St. Mary’s school for 22 years.” says Mr. Mwansa. “My major contribution to the school is to be the chairperson of transport. At present we use a twelve-seater bus with two main purposes; class trips to help visually impaired children become familiar with their environments and to bring students to and from school.”
The educational tours and class trips serve to help the children build a foundation on how they will navigate their environment when they leave the safe confines of the enclosed school grounds. Many of the students live in remote locations, as much as 4-5 hours away from the school in Kawambwa. Always keeping safety from abduction as a priority, the bus must have a minimum of three adults on board when traveling to gather students. The twelve-seater bus becomes very cramped with the students and their luggage as they live at the school and go home only on holidays. This means making four to five trips to transport all the children, increasing gas consumption, and exposing the students to the dangers of being abducted.
“I have personally travelled with different drivers and I have experienced all a person can experience in this rural part of Zambia. Our roads are not tarred and most of the commodities and children are found in places where roads are very bad, full of potholes and water pools. The van often gets stuck in the mud and pushing needs to be done” says Mr. Mwansa. Requiring the adults and children to push the small van to free it from the mud puts them at risk of getting injured. But when the van is too deep in the mud, they must stay there for many hours, sometimes sleeping in the van overnight and trying to free the van in the morning. This happens not only in the rainy season, but also in the dry season as most areas are sandy.
On occasions where there are children with albinism in the van, many villagers will gather around; not to help, but rather intimidate and mock the children. These long journeys are demanding and stressful for the children, especially for the smaller, more vulnerable ones.
The struggles at St. Mary’s Special school are unquestionable. “Words cannot really explain the real situation, but people’s hearts grasp it in a special way that cannot be expressed in words” says Mr. Mwansa. “My blindness tells me that mobility and orientation are the only way that can bring the world closer to a blind person.’
Note: Inverness County Cares has been supporting the needs of St. Mary’s Special School for the past two years in partnership with Chalice (Canada). Chalice has just approved a request for funding from Kawambwa to purchase a large bus to transport students safely. Inverness County Cares will be assisting in raising funds for this purpose.
Inverness County Cares always welcomes new members. Individuals who wish to donate, can use the donate button on our website https://invernesscountycares.com
When using E-transfer, please include your mailing address for CRA tax receipts and thank you. E-transfer address: [email protected]
or send a cheque to Inverness County Cares Box 99, Judique, NS, Canada, B0E1P0. Taxation receipts provided for USA and Canada.
Inverness County Cares (ICC) is a registered charity, established in 2012 and based in Inverness County, NS, Canada. ICC was created by a group of local people who wanted to bring a better life to those in desperate need, with a focus on children in developing countries. Our first project was working with a school for street children, in Nairobi, Kenya for six years. The next project was the development of a water collection system for Ngeza village in Uganda. The current project is the Kawambwa project in Zambia, two schools which cater to albino, blind and visually impaired children as well as those with other physical and intellectual disabilities.
ICC members meet monthly and we work toward providing funds for our projects. Covid 19 restrictions have impacted our usual methods of fundraising but we are still encouraged by the generosity of our supporters. Our most successful project involves collection of refundable beverage containers. Two box trailers are available for people to drop off these items. One location is in Mabou at the Freshmart parking lot and the other is located at the corner in Port Hood at 209 Main Street (Ted and Hermina Van Zutphen’s lane). We thank the many generous people who drop off their containers and also extend our gratitude to Ted Van Zutphen, Stanley Beaton and Raymond DeBont for managing the containers and taking them to the depot to be counted. We thank Wayne and Karen Beaton and Ted and Hermina Van Zutphen for providing the space to park the collection vehicles. Each Christmas season ICC donates the December proceeds from our two collection sites to the local food bank to serve those in need in our local area.
This past summer, ICC members, John and Theresa MacInnis, and Bill Murphy planted a large field with assorted varieties of potatoes. Good weather, fertile soil, lots of hoeing and irrigation equipment from Marlanda Strawberry Fields (Joanie and Angus MacDonell) resulted in a beautiful bumper crop of diverse species of potatoes. In October ICC members gathered to harvest the bountiful crop and in one weekend they were sold at a substantial profit, all of which went to benefit the vulnerable students at the two Zambian schools.
Each Christmas season ICC sends out an appeal letter to ask assistance for our project. This Christmas season our supporters responded very generously and we thank them so much. Our local business community and faith-based organizations have also provided tremendous support, which we greatly appreciate.
ICC works in partnership with Chalice.ca. This is a very beneficial relationship as Chalice provides ICC with accounting services, CRA income tax receipts and very importantly supplies auditing and onsite supervision of our projects. We consider ourselves very fortunate to have access to the guidance and support provided by Chalice personnel at their Halifax head office and their field staff in East Africa.
We also want to give very sincere thanks to our own membership of ICC, who meet at least once a month and spend much more additional time and effort on outreach and support of initiatives to bring a better life to the students. We are always available share the Kawambwa story with our community (following safety protocols or by Zoom) and provide first-hand accounts of life at the Kawambwa Schools.
Inverness County Cares always welcomes new members.
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