Overview

Zambia, like most sub-Saharan African countries, is in a desperate battle against the two-headed giant of poverty and AIDS. Over 80% of Zambia’s population lives on less than $2 per day. Almost one in five Zambians are HIV positive, resulting in 300 deaths every day. Life expectancy at birth has dropped below 40 years of age. World Hope International-Zambia (WHI-Z) is confronting these disparaging statistics head-on through HIV/AIDS prevention and care and rural development programs.

Community Orphan Trusts

WHI'S Community Orphan Trusts (COT) have matured and expanded with more than 50 trusts currently implemented throughout the southern province of Zambia. Each trust provides livelihood improvement projects to support caregivers of vulnerable children, training on community health and HIV/AIDS prevention, nutrition feeding clinics for children under five, and home based care for households caring for the chronically ill. Trusts have provided support for more than 2,500 caregivers and 9,000 vulnerable children. The true story is not in the numbers, but rather in the hope generated and spirit of support felt by the recipients.

Youth Outreach Prevention Initiatives

Reach4Life (R4L) is a Biblicallybased, 40-lesson discipleship curriculum for secondary school students. Developed specifically for African youth, its aim is to encourage youth towards lives of purity before God. The program reminds students they have a choice to live lives of obedience to the Lord, and in so doing, remain sexually pure and avoid HIV. So far in Zambia, WHI has trained leaders and launched the program in 12 schools;reaching more than 6,000 students.

Chabbaboma Land Development

Hope through out the year is what the Chabbabboma Irrigation Project offers hundreds of families, most of whom are caregivers in this area. Chabbabboma has been blessed with a number of key resources, namely water from the biggest man-made lake in the world and vast fertile land. The irrigation plan seeks to provide a sustainable means of income for local communities using existing leadership (the local church) and available resources (land and water). Five acres of maize, three acres of vegetables and over 4,000 bananas have been planted, all supported by a diesel-powered irrigation pump drawing water from the lake and irrigated by a complex array of individual sprinklers. There are 500 direct beneficiaries from the project with an average of eight people per household. The project will benefit approximately 15,000 people in the community and beyond!

Water and Sanitation Initiative
Water is life in Zambia, where eight months a year are completely dry. WHI-Z has been providing water wells to support existing trusts over the past two years, drilling five commercial wells per year. WHI-Z was able to drill 37 water wells in 2007 with the purchase of a new drilling rig. This program, complete with intentional water and sanitation training programs for community members, impacted the lives of more than 14,000 Zambians in 2007.

Education

Hope for Children (HFC) is enabling pastors and caregivers to send their children to school and provide for some of their basic needs like food, clothing and medical care. Families are often overwhelmed by the impact of HIV/AIDS as they are forced to care for orphaned children. HFC sponsorships for over 360 children are a lifeline for caregivers in coping with the effects of the AIDS pandemic.