Dear Friends of Makeni,

We apologise for the erratic supply of news. The founder of the Centre, Fr Pierre J Dil, who normally writes these, is suffering from advanced prostate and bone cancer and is undergoing regular treatment for these in Cape Town, far away from events of the Centre. Below is a summary of some of the latest project news, compiled by MEC managers. Fr Andrew Mukuyamba is now also providing us with news.

Settlement Villages Collaboration

We are delighted at the interest being shown in establishing collaboration in the development of settlement villages with the Dutch Benevolent Society. A supporter of our work in Holland, Dimitri Knobbe, has been campaigning on our behalf for this link to be forged.

You can read more about the idea at the site set up by Mr Knobbe here
www.c-of-b.tk . It dates originally to the time of Napoleon, when impoversihed farmers were encouraged to cultivate land to establish a decent existence for themselves in those hard times.

Settlement Villages
The Settlement Projects are generally doing well except for the poor repayment of loans by settlers. Settlement Officer, Mr Joe Silwenga, wrote up a new repayment scheme. It is hoped that this will be implemented soon.

In 2003 greater emphasis was placed on Community Participatory Programmes, through which we are now encouraging settlers to take responsibility for their own affairs. The three settlement villages have written project proposals to the Zambia Social Sector Investment Fund (ZAMSIF) to source funding for, among other things, improved water supply to the communities. Mwomboshi and Chisamba have created agricultural co-operatives that have allowed for the acquisition of fertiliser for the 2003/2004 growing season.

Two boreholes were sunk in our Mwomboshi and Chisamba settlement villages; both of them have a good yield of water. It was decided this time to try out wind-driven pumps.

Two windmills imported from South Africa have been put up in Chisamba and Mwomboshi. Storage tanks have been delivered but are yet to be put up. The settlers are happy that this first phase of the water project has been done. When completed, the project will help settlers in their growing of vegetables and supply clean water.

St Nicholas Village for AIDS orphans
The nearly 40 children in the Village are growing up very fast and they are doing generally very well. The death of Mutinta caused great upset to staff and children. May her soul rest in peace.

The children are doing very well in school. Esther Chisenga was again top of her class. Two of our children, Audrey and Daniel, are attending a Workshop on HIV AIDS and they are going to take part in a drama group play about AIDS.

A positive development in this project is the introduction of High Energy Protein Supply food supplements, donated by Project Concern International. There is more news about the orphanage here.

Basic Education Projects
The Executive Committee of MEC finalised plans to open a Grade 9 class in 2004, as part of our policy to extend our Upper Primary School by one grade each year. It was also decided to add another pre-school class, since there is great demand for places.

Additional classrooms for these expansions need to be found, as well as equipment and extra staff. Chairs and tables are being made by the carpentry department for the additional pre-school class and will be ready by the first week of July 2004.

The headmaster has applied to ZAMSIF for funds to help improve the facilities of MEC's Primary and Pre Schools. With the help of St Francis' Roman Catholic School (Makeni) our Primary/Basic School was given K1,500,000 by "Seed For Africa", an international organisation which encourages schools to produce food for own consumption and/or sale.

There were five teachers, including the Headmaster, employed by the Centre in the Primary School Department, and a further two teachers for pre-school and baby class and two part-time teachers for grade eight class. There were 362 pupils enrolled in our Basic Education schools in 2003, 184 boys and 178 girls. The demand for places in various classes remains high. There has been a slight improvement in payment of school fees by parents.

26 boys and 20 girls sat for Government Grade 7 Examinations in November 2002. 83% of the candidates were offered Grade 8 places at Makeni Centre or elsewhere.

Adult Training Programme
Our 2004 graduation ceremony is on the 10th of September this year.
Academic results are available from Mrs Christine Allen on request. Another intake of adult students started immediately afterwards.

We are attempting to upgrade our software so that we can provide up to date training in computer literacy. This is proving difficult due to out of date hardware. If we are able to get computers that will run, say, Windows 98 and modern office software, we can make headway in the provision of proper computer training. Compuer literacy courses have proven very popular thus far, but clearly needs development.

Recently it was decided to introduce more short, intensive courses, including fish farming, mushroom production, batik making, and radio and TV maintenance. These have been advertised on Radio Phoenix and Radio Christian Voice.

HIV/AIDS Prevention Project Report
This project continued its activities during 2003, conducting focus group meetings, discussion sessions, home visits and individual counselling. We also regularly distributed informational, educational and communication (IEC) materials in rural and urban areas. We attended various workshops to keep up to date on matters related to HIV/AIDS/STDs. We facilitated the supply of maize, cooking oil and High Energy Protein Supplement to Saint Nicholas Village for AIDS Orphans donated by Project Concern International. We also distributed some protein supplements to vulnerable and malnourished children and sick clients in rural sites during the monthly outreach field trips.

Agriculture Department Report
Sixteen families were settled in our settlement villages in 2003, half of them going to Chisamba and the other eight families to Mwomboshi.

The Agricultural Department introduced new techniques in demonstration plots to help settlement students appreciate different production and soil improvement techniques. We have also introduced a commercial demonstration approach. Through this we sold green maize, tomatoes, onions and carrots providing the department with an income of more than K250,000. Other commercial demonstrations involved ht growing of maize on improved fallow (450m²), irrigated maize (1,250m²) and rain fed maize (3,500m²).

We sold over 40 pigs within Makeni and to Master Pork (our biggest buyer at the moment). A few changes will be made soon to come up with a formula to enhance profitability for the enterprise.

The Mushroom enterprise performed better. The profits amounted to K301,700.


Website
We hope you find the news items recorded here helpful in keeping you up to date with activities at MEC. If so, you may like to record your name as a Friend of Makeni. This entails no obligations, though we encourage Friends to make an annual donation of £15, $25 or K100,000. In 2004 we hope to have a “Mailman” type mailing list, allowing you to control subscription settings to an email newsletter (which will also be posted on the website) and to view archived news. The site availability may be erratic around June/July when a change of hosts is possible.

Yours in Christ,
Fr Pierre J Dil / Founder MEC & Fr Andrew Mukuyamba



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