Partner Overview

For the last two years, church leaders from Chipako have been visiting SCCP in Samfya, asking for assistance to start church based development similar to SCCP’s. They believe that the church can be the solution to poverty in their village and have pledged to put aside denominational differences to work together for the greater good of their community.

In 2010, the local churches of Samfya raised K6,700,000 ($1400) to initiate a loan program in Chipako. Through the microloan program, the churches’ goal in Chipako is to see the Church meet the spiritual, economic and physical needs of the people.

The population of Chipako is approximately 2,000 with the average household consists of 6 individuals. The people of Chipako come from fishing, farming and trading backgrounds. Yearly household incomes in Chipako average K1,640,000 ($365) per year. This means that, on average, individuals are living on 17 cents per day. With cash incomes so low, families are very reliant on subsistence agriculture. Most families grow cassava, both for household consumption and sale. Next to cassava production, fishing and fish trading are the next most important industries in Chipako. There is a small government clinic and a basic school in Chipako, but due to low incomes, almost 40 percent of families interviewed cannot send their children to school.

April 2012 Update

In March of this year a new water project took place to address some of the water needs in Chipako and the surrounding areas. One of the projects included upgrading pumps in 3 high use areas. These upgrades provided more durable equipment allowing the pumps to handle the higher demands placed on them by the community’s. Another project included maintenance to existing hand pumps. In this they were able to fix 6 of the pumps that were broken and restore the flow of clean water to the community’s that have come to enjoy having clean water. The final project was to drill a new well and install a pump in the village of Sepe. Sepe is located just outside Samfya and has had trouble with contaminated water in the past. Two years ago there was an outbreak of Cholera in the community. This pump will equip the village with a source for clean water free of Cholera and other bacteria that causes illness. These projects improved the lives of 1,150 people through the provision of clean water

October 2011 Update

In April 2011, a team from SCCP traveled down to Chipako to conduct a water resource management workshop with the community of Chipako. At the workshop Steve Thomson, a volunteer from the US, and representatives from Samfya Water & Sanitation, the organization Steve is working with, presented a variety of water pumps and well drilling options and costs for the community to consider. The workshop participants were told the available funding they had for the project was K30,000,000 or approximately $6,600 USD and were then split into groups to discuss their community's water needs and the interventions they would like to implement. In the end, the workshop selected:

• 4 new wells drilled and outfitted with the Water4 pumps
• 5 well caps fitted over existing hand dug wells and fitted with the Water4 pump
• 1 well cap for a hand dug well at Chipako's Basic School fitted with a more durable India Mark II hand pump.

All told the Chipako Water Project has provided safe drinking water too approximately 985 individuals, close to half of the village's population.

 

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Zambia

location: Southern Africa
population: 11,862,740
median age: 17 years old
life expectancy: 38.63 years
religion: Christian (50%-75%), Muslim and Hindu (24%-49%)
aids prevalence: 15.2%
below the poverty line: 86%

All stats courtesy of CIA World Factbook