By Elke Kroeger-Radcliffe | Voluntary Director
It is our great pleasure to report a total success of this project – thank you all so very much! The sum of $7 800 has not quite been reached, but we – due to the excitement of the target population, have already spent some $ 9000 and have declared the end of the project. However, since these villagers come to Tiko once a fortnight, there will forever be requests for more help, but basically, they can continue on their own, as the items needed can mostly be made from materials, which tend to be available in the villages.
Here are the numbers: our students from 2007, i.e. the volunteers who wanted to learn about the care for AIDS patients were 37, but we have 84 households, more than double, who managed to set up all four activities, in 20 villages. 75 other households have only the clay stove and outdoor kitchen, 65 have set up a pigeon kraal, and 56 have started to breed rabbits, but 140 have vegetable rings, the heart of the matter and our hope of the future: we hope to all make organic compost, humus and Vermiliquid (= wurm urin or wormcast, which is used as fertilizer and pest control in one - tests are running), which go with building a vegetable ring, and aggregate these at Tiko and sell them to Lusaka or neighbouring countries.
If you consider that the survival package would cost $ 250, if we bought and brought every single thing to the villages, then you will be impressed thinking that there now is a value of 84 x 250 = $ 21 000, thanks to their acceptance of our ideas.
If you have followed what we were doing over the years, you may ask why they did not do these things much earlier, since our information was out there – 19 steps out of poverty for the subsistence farmer was written in 2014. But you see, we had to change a mind-set. People here in Katete are especially traditional, and you know about Aboriginal people in Australia or the Inuit in Canada, who have very different ways and are not so easy to join the Western type of development.
People are traditional, which means they believe in the past. Everything from the past is good, everything new is suspicious. And Zambians have had especially little contact with people from overseas, mainly because of malaria. But we must admit that it was not only our cleverness that made them change – the near tragic situation of the economy and the ills of agriculture at the moment made it quite clear that vegetable grown at home is a clever idea, when there is next to no maize, which is the only thing they call FOOD.
That they are truly living with their believes we can show you when you come – the ghost dance of the Nyao, the girl’s dance when they come of age, the Kulamba end of August when the chiefs of the 12 million Chewa in Malawi, Mozambique and Zambia pay homage to their Paramount chief just ten km from Katete, Yet, you would not know that they firmly believe in witchcraft when you meet them, as friendly and as generous as they are. Come and join the Tiko family, even if for 3 days only, on the way to the arguably best game park of Africa, South Luangwa.
But mainkly, come and see how much your help changes lives of the people at Katete.
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