Sr Charmaine de la Chaumette, FMA,
Lusaka, Zambia
Sr
Charmaine de la Chaumette, Salesian Sisters, works as the
coordinator of the ‘City of Hope’ project in Lusaka in Zambia. Here
she talks about the project which has enabled more than 1000
orphaned or abused children access education at their centre in
Lusaka for the first time in their young lives.
‘The Salesian Sisters have been based in Lusaka for 24 years. Down through the years we have built up strong ties with the local community. In 1995 we were allocated 13.5 hectares of land in Makeni - 10 kilometres south of Lusaka - for humanitarian work. There we started our project City of Hope for ‘girls-at-risk’.
City of Hope consists of a girl’s hostel, an Open Community School and a Skills Training Centre.
The hostel is home for the girls, mostly orphans, referred to us through the Social Welfare, Police or from other Institutions.
We first try to place them with family members before resorting to long term care. This also applies in identifying older children who have dropped out of education and are brought into the Open Community School or Skills Training Centre.
Presently there are 86 girls (aged between 7 - 22 years) who have no one to care for them and so who live at City of Hope. We want our Centre to be referred to as ‘a home’, where the girls feel they are accepted and loved.
‘City of Hope’, has always been directed at the poorest of poor in this area. The vast majority of children accessing the centre are AIDS orphans, street children, abused children, victims of child trafficking, refugees and children suffering from malnutrition, education and family deprivation.
At our Open Community School, basic education is offered to youths aged between 9 and 17 years.
During this time over a period of 4 years, they learn the subjects offered at Primary School. After the 4 years preparation, they are given an opportunity to write the Government Grade 7 examination. Most of these children do not have the opportunity of going to other schools due to financial means.
There are now 460 girls registered at the Open Community School. When the local community approached us expressing the needs for boys as well as girls, we began a new programme to offer afternoon-classes for 390 boys.
The Skills Training Centre - registered under the Ministry for Vocational Development – is aimed at young women aged between 16 and 30 years.
This provides them with practical working skills, teaching them to be self-reliant. The courses offered are tailoring, catering and home management. We have also started a computer course at the centre.
The Skills Centre has now opened to male participants also, who want to learn one of the skills currently being offered.
We have a feeding programme where we offer high protein supplementary food, as ‘no one can learn on an empty stomach’. For many of the children, this is their main meal. More than a thousand people are fed at City of Hope every day.’