Baby Milk Project

Project overview

The objective of this project is to provide milk for orphaned and undernourished babies in the impoverished Lukulu District, Zambia.

The people of Lukulu in Zambia suffer great deprivations in comparison to the rest of the country. This remote region can only be accessed by one very poorly maintained dirt road spanning 200kms to the nearest tarred surface.  The population is currently around 96,000 and the poverty level stands at 98%. 

The Baby Milk project was initiated in 2006 when a Zambian medical superintendent at the local hospital requested assistance from the Loreto Sisters to help save the lives of four orphaned babies. Since the project’s inception, the lives of hundreds of babies have been saved by the provision of milk formula. Breastfeeding is considered paramount where possible. Only the babies of those mothers who cannot breastfeed for a medical reason or who have insufficient breast milk to provide adequate nutrition for the baby are admitted into the program.

The project has helped to save the lives of hundreds of babies who would have had no access to milk formula needed to survive. With 17% of the Zambian population HIV positive, many babies are unable to be breast-fed by their mothers after the age of 6-months due to the mother-to-child transmission risk. 

Case study

Vehicle support for the Integrated Health Care Support Program

Project overview

Since arriving in East Africa in 1921, the Loreto Sisters have supported the local community  through spiritual ministries, education, health and pastoral work.  

The objective of this project is to provide ongoing transport for all aspects of the Primary Health Care Support Program in Lukulu. A dispersed and impoverished rural-based population, together with an under resourced Ministry of Health, has created an ongoing need to provide mobile health and pastoral care. 

The Integrated Health Care Support Program (IHCSP) commenced in 1998 in direct response to needs expressed by the community, volunteers and the local Ministry of Health. Lukulu is a remote and impoverished district in Zambia, with no infrastructure and minimal access to health facilities, schools, clean water and sanitation. It has no tarred roads, only sand tracks through bushland. Providing reliable transport enables many to finally have access to primary health care. Support is primarily given through a home-based care (HBC) program. The vulnerable are visited by nurses and transported to hospital for urgent care or referral.

Project activities

• Transporting the sick to and from the local district hospital
• The vehicle is assisting the IHCSP to educate villagers about COVID-19 and its prevention, and to distribute soap
• Transporting nurses, caregivers and medicines for home visits
• Enabling access to specialist treatment at Chitokoloki Mission Hospital (4 hour’s drive)
• Transporting pregnant mothers in need of emergency maternal health
• Delivering milk to distribution points at Rural Health Centres for carers of orphaned or vulnerable babies to access
• Daily food delivered to malnourished children
• Generating income through the sale and distribution of soya bean supplies
• Raising funds through a tuckshop selling goods, ensuring the HBC is now self-sustainable. It is voluntarily operated, and the vehicle is used to transport goods
• Transporting solar panels for installation at the Health Care Centre

Project beneficiaries

Those who directly benefit include: 

• 120-150 vulnerable people (mostly women) every year, who are sick or in childbirth and unable to get to a hospital on their own
• Approximately 30 caregivers transported to visit people living in remote locations
• Orphaned and vulnerable babies reliant on the milk programme (up to 100 annually) who receive milk and medicine transported by the vehicle
• Impoverished disabled children and adults who are transported to access specialist treatment, otherwise unavailable to them
• Housebound disabled seniors including those living with leprosy. These citizens are transported to Church every Sunday and otherwise could not attend. This is often the only social outlet for them

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ON OUR VEHICLE SUPPORT project

Lukulu Teacher Scholarship and Community School Support

Project overview

The Loreto Sisters have been working with these rural community schools since 2006, and along with the Ministry of Education, have constructed classroom blocks and teacher housing, provided in-service and formal teacher training and financial support to untrained teachers to complete Grade 12. 

This project will provide educational training and vital resources to community schools within the Lukulu and Mitete districts – the only existing schools for children to complete their primary education. Education is an essential key to breaking the cycle of poverty.

The Lukulu people have identified primary education as the most effective means of bringing about development for their communities. When no government schooling is available, many rural communities start their own schools to educate their children. As community schools are gradually absorbed into the mainstream government system, more are initiated by communities desperate to have their children educated. This project will provide teacher training, educational resources and necessary infrastructure for the schools.

Many schools initiated by rural village communities lack trained teachers. The objective of this project is to train volunteer teachers from rural community schools in the Lukulu and Mitete Districts over a period of five years. The teachers would obtain a Diploma in Primary Education by studying for three years at Mongu College of Education (MCE), a college affiliated with the University of Zambia.

A condition of participating in the teacher training project is that the teacher graduates return to Lukulu District to teach voluntarily in a rural community school. In due course, they will be employed by the government to teach within this same Western Province, the most impoverished province in Zambia. This has recently become government policy.

Project activities

Scholarships

• Provide financial assistance to support potential student teachers obtaining the Grade 12 certificate
• Assist with applications to Mongu College of Education – affiliated with the University of Zambia
• Regularly monitor students’ progress and manage consequences should students not meet guidelines

Recent project achievements

• 14 teachers are currently sponsored at MCE
• Drilling of a borehole at Mukolisho community school
• Desks, blackboards, chairs and tables distributed
• 44 community schools provided with basic teaching stationery and resources
• Basic stationery supplied to the most vulnerable students
• Loreto has already helped train teachers and provide resources to 44 community schools in Lukulu
• Trained teachers and improvement in the level of literacy and numeracy of primary students has enhanced the possibility that more students will progress to secondary education

Join us today in helping children to reach their potential and unlock poverty.

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ON OUR lukulu teacher training project

Lunch Feeding Program

Project  overview 

The goal of this project is to feed orphans and vulnerable children attending the local school. This will improve the students’ concentration and academic performance, reduce nutrition-related disease and help prevent early pregnancy.

St Columba’s Secondary School has 450 pupils, the majority of whom come from impoverished communities in Lukulu township and rural villages in the most remote and least developed parts of Zambia. Many of the children are vulnerable orphans from districts scattered across a vast area with little infrastructure.

A lunch feeding program will ensure students can concentrate and remain at school until the end of the school day at 5pm. This may be the only meal for the day for those from impoverished homes. Some pupils camp in shacks in Lukulu township and try to find work after school and on the weekend to pay for rent and buy food. When work cannot be found, hunger is evident during lessons. Some students opt to miss school in order to pursue odd jobs to survive. Providing students with a meal at lunchtime will reduce truancy, improve academic performance, and prevent nutritional related illness.

Project activities

• The program will be implemented by a team of three teachers and a Loreto Sister
• The academic progress of the beneficiaries will be monitored
• Ongoing dialogue between the teachers and the school administration will ensure the most needy and vulnerable students will be fed
• Pupils who can afford a monthly fee to enrol in the feeding program will be encouraged to contribute to help supplement the budget

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ON OUR lunch feeding project

Sancta Maria College of Nursing and Midwifery Kitchen Equipment 

Project  overview 

Lukulu, in remote western Zambia, has no employment on offer nor opportunities for post-school tertiary or professional education. This creates an atmosphere of hopelessness among young people. Even those fortunate enough to attend secondary school have little to strive for as they know their families cannot support further study outside of Lukulu, even if they get the grades to do so. Consequently, many drop-out from school, resulting in teenage pregnancies, sex work, alcohol and drug problems, and young girls confined to village life with no future. In turn, this prohibits the potential for them to break the cycle of poverty for themselves and their family. 

The establishment of the Sancta Maria College of Nursing and Midwifery on the former Mission Hospital site will provide young people, particularly young women, with an opportunity for tertiary and professional training. It will also address the severe shortage of nurses currently experienced in the country. The nursing college intends to recruit students from the local area who are familiar with the living conditions. Qualified nurses graduating from the college will be more inclined to stay in the area they know so well and have family attachments, increasing retention levels. This will result in stable and qualified staff delivering a quality health service in marginalised regions of the country. The college intends to be ready for its first intake of students in July 2021.   

Mary Ward International Australia thanks the Noel and Carmel O’Brien Family Foundation for their generous support of this project. 

Project activities

• Repair and furnish the existing, unused buildings of the former hospital 
• Source much-needed teaching lab, kitchen and classroom equipment from local suppliers 
• Construct and furnish accommodation for students and academic staff 
• Provide transport for students to complete the practical component of their studies at the local hospital 
• Establish a bursary system to help the most impoverished who have achieved sufficient grades