As mentioned before, we work with an amazing group of people
at the Kitwe Service Center. We’ll probably be mentioning them from time to
time in our posts so we figured we would take the opportunity to introduce you
to our new team!
Pastor Blessings
Sambo – Service Center Coordinator
Towela Lungu –
Service Center Coordinator
Pastor Blessings and Ma Towela share the role of Service Center
Coordinator, with Pastor Blessings now transitioning into the role of community
support with the Regional Support Team in Zambia. The role of the Service Center
Coordinator is to coordinate, manage and lead the Service Center. Pastor
Blessings and Ma Towela also have the responsibility of being our mom and dad
while we’re here!
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| Pastor Blessings |
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| Ma Towela, our new mom |
Clement Lufupa –
Field Coordinator
Clement is the field coordinator in charge of project
support. Projects in the community can include the building of schools, feeding
programs, managing income generating activities (IGAs), etc.
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| Is that Clement? Or Ray Allen? |
Mary Mulenga –
Bookkeeper
As a bookkeeper, Mary is responsible for all things
financial in the Service Center. This includes helping Community Based
Organizations (CBOs) manage their finances and handling the cashflow.
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| The baby of the bunch, Mary |
In the next little while, we will be bringing a new member
aboard the team to be the field coordinator in charge of careworker support. We
look forward to meeting him/her!
As mentioned before, the Kitwe Service Center supports 9
different communities that each have their own CBO, comprised of local
individuals in the community that are committed to caring for the most
vulnerable children (these people are called careworkers). In a typical week,
from Monday to Thursday, the Service Center attempts to visit each of its
communities at least once, whether it’s to have meetings, do home visits or assist
them with certain projects. This can prove quite challenging as one of the
communities (Zimba) takes 1.5 hours to get to! Fridays are usually devoted to
catching up on administrative tasks in the office.
Our role for the next 6 months is to support our team and
focus on building relationships with them and the careworkers. We also hope to
use our respective educational backgrounds and skills to help build capacity in
the Service Center and do whatever we can to assist them with their work. In
the meantime, we expect to learn loads of stuff about Kitwe, the CBOs that we
support, the Zambian culture and, of course, the Bemba language!
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| View from the front entrance |
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| Our shared desk |
The team above (and every other Service Center, for that
matter) is made up of individuals that began as careworkers and proved
exceptional at what they do. They were born and continue to live in the
community, in very similar conditions to the people we visit in the
communities. On the first couple of days at the office, we noticed that they
did not eat a single thing throughout the entire day. We asked them about it
and we came to the sad realization that they simply cannot afford to pack a lunch.
We’re talking about people that work a full-time job, solely devoted to serving
and caring for the most vulnerable children in the most vulnerable communities.
Hands at Work provides them with a small incentive each month but it is barely
enough for them and their family to get by. We have taken to buy a loaf of
bread for our team 2 or 3 times a week (there is peanut butter in the office)
so that our team can at least eat something throughout the day. These people
come from very little, have very little and receive very little for what they
do. Despite this, they do their work with such joy and live by such incredible
faith. We are truly inspired by Pastor Blessings, Ma Towela, Clement and Mary
and are so blessed to work alongside them. Please pray for our team and that
God would continue to bless them and do amazing things through them!