Zambia Community Contribution

The 25% Community Contribution piece of every project is either an in-kind contribution or a cash contribution - most often an in-kind contribution. For the Water Well Program, people come to build structures on the SSAAP compound, or re-thatch our roof, or re-do parts of our local structures that the rains have demolished. The SSAAP Microloan Program requires that people who receive loans get work days to come to help with the project on our compound. Each loan cycle constitutes one work day.

The people choose their jobs, typically, based upon both their skill set and their interests. The women above are fetching water (left) and raking/weeding the yard (right) to ensure that snakes don’t enter. Sometimes people thatch the roof of our house, when it has too many holes after the rainy season; men often come to put a local fence around the SSAAP compound, and enjoy these kinds of projects.

It is so nice to get to know people better when they come to the house and we get to spend one-on-one time with them rather than just as a mass group to collect their loans. The intimacy of the project has always been one-on-one. My ‘secret scheme’ in the Community Contribution piece of the project is having a way to get to know people better and to form deeper relationships and alliances with them, also to know who has what talents and how people’s individual and specific talents can be used best in the project and how the project can tailor their needs as well as their dreams.

Community Contribution is also a way to ascertain who is ready to give back to the project and who doesn’t want to work and is only after a hand-out; people who are ready to give back are people who are ready for development and those who only want a hand-out but are stingy to give back are those who prevent development for others. In this project of giving out and giving back, people must learn both ways; we all want to rise together.

Well Drilling

Sustainability is contingent upon the community’s desire for clean water. Mandatory well committees are organized for any SSAAP - built well to maintain, repair, and sensitize the whole community as to the importance of the well. Underlying this, the sustainability factor rests in the concept that those who have invested in the well will oversee the maintenance of their well.

Farmer’s Association Program

SSAAP is registered under the Zambian government as a community-based organization. SSAAP’s registration certificate, renewed annually, serves as a channel by which local farmers in Simwatachela can receive seeds and fertilizer for their fields at a discounted rate.. Farmers cultivate their fields with seeds and fertilizer annually through assistance from SSAAP’s registration with the Zambian government.

Headquarters

SSAAP-Zambian Headquarters is located in Simwatachela Chiefdom, Zambia. The Headquarters has no running water or electricity and was built in 2004 by the community when Heather was a Peace Corps Volunteer. Since that time, the Headquarters has been renovated with an industrial-pole styled roof, thatched grass, and a cement floor. We also have four locally-made bookshelves inside the house.

Microloans

In SSAAP’s Zambia Microloan Program, sustainability comes with the understanding by the recipients that as one loan is re-paid, the loan funds are recycled to another person in need. Here is one young woman’s story: