Everyone’s online

Last week we launched Jubilee Centre’s new website – www.jubileecentre.org – which I have been working on over the past year. We’ve developed the new site so that it easily provides the latest news and Monday Issue from JC – you can subscribe to receive both of these by email, just click here.

During last week I also trained all the staff at JC on how to maintain the site – yet again it uses WordPress – which was interesting during the week when we had the worst internet connection ever! We got there in the end though – and are now even changing internet provider as well.

As a result there are personal blog sites springing up from JC staff and associates… so far we have the following:

Bread of Life Church Mapalo – this is the new website from the church we have worked with the most in Mapalo, including home of the HBC women’s group Polly has worked with.

Dan Daka’s blog – Dan is a volunteer at JC

Pukuta Mwanza’s blog – Pukuta, a good friend of ours from before we came to Zambia, just last week joined the JC staff to spearhead the Church Mobilisation Programme.

Micah Challenge Zambia – this is the home of Micah Challenge in Zambia, which is housed at JC.

* Update *  The past year has seen JC have major internet connection problems – despite much complaining and telephone calls we’ve never had the problems resolved. Last week’s problems forced JC to look into getting a new provider… and by Monday night this week the new provider had connected us up and all the problems of old are now left to yesterday… what can I say… a week before we leave Zambia JC not only gets a reliable fast internet connection but also a wireless connection!

Mapalo Farewell

Last Saturday our friends in Mapalo orgnanised a farewell party for us. We have both worked closely with the community in Mapalo – Polly has been working with the Home Based Care women’s group visiting the long term sick every week and helping to develop this into a sustainable funded programme, whilst Matt has worked with the church leaders there in advocacy, including helping them to develop their memorandum of understanding during the elections last year.

So a party with the locally elected councillor and the women’s home based care group in attendance was a great way to say farewell. They put us on the high table with the councillor and showered us with ‘confetti’! We’ve uploaded some photo’s on Flickr – which you should also be able to see in a nifty little show below!

MCZ Copperbelt launch

Micah Challenge Zambia is now embarking on a series of provincial launches across the country, and this week saw the Copperbelt provincial launch take place in Kitwe. We were joined by Joel Edwards of the EA UK and Andy Clasper of Micah Challenge UK, as well as the District Commissioner for Kitwe representing the Minister for the Copperbelt. The national media covered the story, but dwelt more on what the Minister ’said’ even though he wasn’t even there in person… but any coverage is better than none!

We’ve uploaded a few photo’s that you can see on our flickr pages.

Cultural viewing?

Now we don’t own a TV – but plenty of people (especially in urban areas) do, and so Zambia has just as many TV-addicts as elsewhere in the world. So in a spirit of cultural exchange I thought that you may be wondering what most Zambians like watching? We’ve talked about the perils of ‘exporting the empire’ a few times on this blog and TV schedules in Zambia are far from immune, but even bearing that in mind it may still be a bit of a surprise to know that some of the most popular TV programmes in Zambia are from World Wrestling Entertainment (what used to be known as WWF). We are pretty sure that the afternoon service at the church we go to was rescheduled so it wouldn’t interfere with the Sunday afternoon wrestling programme… if you have broadband and want to get a glimpse of what you may or may not be missing out on click here.

MCZ launch

Just over a week ago we were in Lusaka organising the national launch of Micah Challenge Zambia. It was a lot of hard work over a month or so, with us up and down to Lusaka and running round delivering invites and press releases. There was a conference for church leaders and then a launch event the following day. Unfortunately neither events were very well attended – Lusaka people are difficult to mobilise! - which left us all feeling disappointed after so much hard work. But hey that is the way it goes sometimes – despite the disappointments it was covered on the main national TV news and radio stations, and it officially launched the campaign, whilst also seeing a new Steering Committee elected, which in the longer term could prove to be more important than people on the day!

Lawrence Temfwe, National Facilitator of MCZ, being interviewed by the media

Newly elected Steering Committee of MCZ

Creative Food

Well we have eaten small dried fish, fish eyes, caterpillars but this weekend was the worst – we ate cow hooves. There is no meaty inner bit, it is literally the outside hard bit boiled and boiled and boiled until it resembles tough rubber. It’s not like it’s got a terrible flavour, it’s just the thought of what you are eating that makes your stomach churn.

It’s actually really great to see these healthy and creative village recipes being kept alive in some homes. In most places in Zambia (as in the rest of the world) there is a rush towards highly processed convenience food. One drink, AppleMax, that is popular in schools because it is cheap, actually made my head spin when I drank it. I dread to think what it is doing to the kids. Whilst the convenience is food of choice across the world, I fear standards here are much lower as consumers don’t question the cheapness and governing consumer standards are weak. Consumers are choosing to westernise, and go for the cheapest (which is often the nastiest or weakest option). This is why cheap foreign imports, especially Chinese goods are doing so well here, despite the fact that they break frequently. It’s not that trade should not happen, but people need to build some reliance on local goods and foods for the sake of creativity, sustainability and health.

Polly makes her Masters

Today Polly received her dissertation results… and confirmation that she has passed her Masters course in Education for Sustainability. She hasn’t just passed, but has done so with flying colours, coming in at 80% – and her dissertation examiner commented on it being one of the best they had ever read! Congratulations Polly Msc!

Mutinonodo Photo’s

Just back from a week camping in the Zambian bush to celebrate my 30th – so here are a few photo’s of what was a wonderful week of hiking, cycling, swimming and even horse riding at one point… all in the beautiful natural surroundings of an unspoilt part of rural Zambia. You can see all the photo’s on our flickr pages (or as a slideshow).

If you are down as one of our Family or Friends Contacts in Flickr sign-in for a few extra photo’s – if you are not but have a Flickr account let us know.

Crucial connection

Hooray! Polly has finished her dissertation. The past three months have seen Polly busy researching and writing her long put off dissertation, which is part of her Masters in Education for Sustainability. She has been looking at aspects of participation and what is locally relevant with an eye to helping community projects empower local people. She battled with power cuts and a laptop that broke halfway through… but still managed to finish by the deadline… all ready to email it on Monday…. but when it came to email it, for the first time ever, we experienced a (temporary) breakdown of internet services in Ndola! Not just at the office but every internet café in town could not get online. But nothing could dampen her spirits… the hard slog is over!

Easter e-card – New Life*

As I was thinking about Easter… the pain and suffering of the events of Holy week as Jesus was condemned to death – and then the new life we celebrate in the resurrection of Jesus – I reflected on what that ‘new life’ really means… and so I thought of Alex in the photo above.

I met Alex last week – he lives in a rural part of north western Zambia and is HIV+. He has known great suffering. Having discovered he was HIV+ 8 years ago… he was condemned to death… but then four years ago he was able to start taking Anti-Retroviral drugs that would transform his life…

Alex knows what new life is… he lives and breathes it every new day.

This Easter may you know the joy of new life

Matt & Polly

If you can’t see the image above clearly – click here.

Photo: Alex is happy for us to identify him as HIV+ and is pictured here holding his Anti-Retroviral drugs. He is married with one daughter and lives in a rural community where health facilities are still very limited – he is the chairperson for the constituency committee for action on HIV created at a Jubilee Centre led workshop last week. The words are those of Jesus from John 10:10.