Mweru Project, Zambia

See the progress you helped make happen in your sponsored community

When the project started, many children couldn’t read or write and diseases like malaria and anaemia were claiming many lives. Most families faced food shortages and only one in three people had access to clean water.

Thanks to your support, children in the Mweru community have improved access to education and healthcare. Families are equipped with training and resources to generate more income, which has improved children's wellbeing.

Before your help, many families did not have reliable access to clean water or hygienic toilets and bathing facilities. Now schools, health centres and communal areas are equipped with hygienic toilets and handwashing stations.

Together we've achieved so much

Almost 90 percent of children under five are immunised

This has helped to reduce child illness and preventable deaths.

More families live within a one-kilometre radius of a health centre, meaning they can access health services faster.
The project helped reduce the vulnerability of children and adults to HIV and AIDS through awareness campaigns and improved health services.
More trained health staff are available meaning more women can give birth in a clean and supportive environment rather than at home.
Four in five children are eating a healthy variety of foods after families learned how to grow more nutritious food and increase their incomes.

60 percent of children can read and write

This has risen from 40 percent in 2016.

Children have access to new classroom blocks, school toilets, textbooks and desks to support their learning.
Out-of-school reading camps have improved children's reading and writing skills.
Parents place greater value on education and many participate in literacy promotion activities and actively encourage their children’s learning.
The incidence of child marriage has reduced, following awareness campaigns conducted with support from the Zambian Government.

83.3 percent of people were regularly washing their hands by 2015

This is up from 16.7 percent in 2006.

Over 39,000 people have improved access to clean water following construction of 21 boreholes and the rehabilitation of another four.
Waterborne illnesses have reduced, and children are spending less time collecting water and more time in school.
28 toilet blocks were built in health centres, schools and the wider community to improve hygiene.

"Before we had the clinic, people used to die along the way since the distance to the nearest health facility was 15 kilometres from our community. But now that is a thing of the past."

- Andrew Mutati, Mweru Area Program Management Committee

New opportunities

Many children like Gift who live in the Mweru community never had the chance to go to school and get an education – which is a fundamental child right. His mother, who took care of Gift and his four siblings alone, struggled to afford enough food to feed her family.

Thanks to the generous support of child sponsors like you, Gift and his family’s lives have changed. His mother was provided with three goats, enabling her to generate enough income to send her children to school.

The quality of education has improved and more children than ever before are completing their studies. You helped build new classroom facilities and increased the number of children who can read and write.

“I now have a means and ways of taking care of my child’s future,” said Gift's mother. Now Gift, pictured meeting his sponsor Lesley, can dream about what he wants to be in the future.

"When I grow up, I want to be a doctor ... Thank you very much for a life-changing experience. It has been a great journey with you, my sponsor."

- Gift, aged 15, sponsored child