M.E.C. Makeni Ecumenical Centre - Annual Report - 2001

Address: P. O Box 50255 Lusaka Tel : 260-1-272853

E - mail : makenec @ zamnet. zm Fax: 260-1-272437

______________________________________________

Dear Friends, In this Report

The staff of Makeni Ecumenical * Organisation

Centre send their best wishes to you all! * Guests and Volunteers

* Organisational Chart

Activities

2001 has been again a very busy year. * The Adult Training Programme

The one new Project introduced in the * Pre/Primary School

year 2001 was the HIV/AIDS Prevention * Makeni Clinic

Project. * Orphanage

Only one staff is involved in it so far, due * Computer Skills Courses

to lack of funds. It will gradually expand * Settlement Project

as funds become available. * Family Planning

* Library

* Livestock

 

1. ORGANISATION

Makeni Ecumenical Centre is a Christian Non-Governmental Organisation formed in 1971 whose mission is to offer education, health, family planning and community services within a Christian frame work. M.E.C. offers child and adult education programmes of a wide variety, and courses in agricultural settlement to the community of Lusaka and Zambia as a whole. Most of these activities were started as needs arose in the local community. One of MEC’s major programmes is the creation of rural "Settlement Villages" in which families trained by MEC in agriculture are settled.

Makeni Ecumenical Centre is administered by an Executive Committee consisting of senior members of staff. The Executive Committee sees to policy matters and meets regularly to ensure that projects are running smoothly. In turn, each project or department is headed by a qualified head of department who is answerable to the Executive Committee.

2. Guests

During the year, the following people visited M.E.C. and its projects:-

  1. Hugh and Eva Bown – Retired expatriates visiting Zambia. Worked with Fr. Dil in a Nutrition Programme in the late sixties and early seventies.
  2. Mike and Janet Capel – Mike Capel is a retired Inspector of schools in Agriculture Science. He lived in Makeni before retirement.
  3. Phyllis Crane – Retired worker who once worked at Fiwila Mission
  4. Elizabeth Young – wife of the British High Commissioner.
  5. Dr. Patrick Nkanza and C. Nataraaj – Officers from Technical Education and Vocational Training. They officiated at the 30th Graduation Ceremony.
  6. MaryAnne Hoekstra – Director of African Programmes, Mobile Outreach Ministry USA.
  7. Dr. S. Haagsma – Global Ministries UCN Holland.
  8. Bishop Trevor Rhodes – TAC Bishop of Southern Africa
  9. Hon. A M Chambeshi – Minister of Lands
  10.  

  11. Sr. Leomia Kornas – from Chilanga Hospice, brought Mutinta to the Orphanage.
  12. Dr. Tina Beattie – Friend of Makeni Ecumenical Centre, Lecturer Bristol UK.

3. Organisational Chart

Our Organisational Chart is designed to operate on a centralised structure i.e the vertical way of communication.

THE EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE

THE PERSONNEL & ADMINISTRATIVE MANAGER

ADULT EDUCATION CHILD EDUCATION FAMILY PLANNING ADMINISTRATION SOCIAL PROJECTS

(Heads of Departments) (Head Master) (Project Manager) (Admin.Manager)

1.Agriculture department. 1. PRE/PRIMARY 1.FINANCE 1.ORPHANAGE

-Agriculture Settlement SCHOOL 2.REGISTRY 2. HIV/AIDS

-Agriculture General (Teachers) 3.PURCHASING DEPT. PREVENTION

2.Electronics department 4.MAINTENANCE PROJECT

-Full-Time Electronics

3.Capentry & Joinery

4.Home Economics &

Tailoring.

5. Computer Skills Courses

(Lecturers)

 

 

4. The Adult Education Programme

The adult courses include Agriculture-General, Agriculture-Settlement Training, Carpentry & Joinery, Home craft and Tailoring, Radio and TV/VCR Maintenance(Craft Certificate).

 

 

 

 

 

Below is a table of statistics for enrolment:

Course

Number Enrolled

No. of students for exams

Full Certificates

Without Certificates

Agriculture General

20

15

12

3

Agriculture Settlement

26

26

26

21 settled

Homecraft

25

25

19

6

Carpentry.& Joinery

11

Not yet

-

-

Radio & TV (Trade Certificate)

25

  • 5

3

2

MEC’s Adult Education Programme this year received local support through a large donation from the Ministry of Science, Technology and Vocational Training. The donation, ‘in kind’, amounted to K57.7 million, an equivalent of US$ 13,750. The amount covered the following:

Human Resources Development – K23.8 million

Tools/Equipment – K23.5 million

Building Renovations – K2.2 million

Management Systems – K8.2 million

5. PRE/PRIMARY SCHOOL

5.1 Staffing

There are five teachers (including the Headmaster) employed by the Centre running the Primary School and two teachers in the Pre School. The primary school operated double sessions in grades 1,2,3 and 4. There were 355 pupils in the two schools.

5.2 Opening

The school opened on 15th January, 2001 as per Ministry of Education re-scheduled timetable.

Attendance was good on opening day and continued to improve during the opening week until

normal.

5.3 Classroom Furniture

Three desks from grade seven needed repairs and these were done by the Carpentry

department.

5.4 Sports Equipment

There have been suggestions to introduce sports attire for our boys and girls and to

purchase balls. At the moment, there are no jerseys for either boys or girls.

 

5.5 During the year, many parents were unable to pay the small school fees. As a result a loss of income

of K3.8 million was incurred in school fees in 2001.

5.6 Pre-School

15 girls and 10 boys graduated to grade 1 of our primary school in the year, out of 21 girls and 21 boys. Those below the age of six were not selected to grade 1 and they are to do another year of pre-school. A number of toys need replacement as they are partially or completely worn out. Donations

of toys will be greatly appreciated!

 

5.7 Grade Seven Results

25 boys and 17 girls sat for grade seven examination in October, 2001. 22 boys and 14 girls

have been offered places in grade 8 in various schools in Lusaka and Kafue. This represents

86% of the total number of candidates who sat for the examination.

6. MAKENI CLINIC

Makeni Clinic, within the Centre, now serves a population of about 37,000 people. 20% of the population are children under the age of five and attend our under-five clinic. 1900 pregnant women visited the clinic in the past year. The clinic staff attend to about 4,000 people per month. The clinic now employs 23 staff, all paid by the District Management Health Team. It is still one of the busiest places in the Centre.

Below are the statistics of the clinic:

 

JAN

FEB

MAR

APR

MAY

JUN

JUL

AUG

SEPT

OCT

NOV

DEC

TOTAL

ANTE-NATAL

801

681

540

797

791

793

872

742

481

661

481

366

8,006

CHILD HEALTH

1970

947

985

1454

1913

1312

1786

2451

1238

1121

1335

2173

18,685

OUT PATIENT

1089

1298

1674

1492

1447

1151

1387

1340

2005

2182

2169

2085

19,319

TOTAL

3,860

2,926

3,199

3,743

4,151

3,256

4,045

4,533

3,724

3,964

3,985

4,624

46,010

 

 

7. ORPHANAGE VILLAGE

Our Orphanage of St. Nicholas started in January, 2001. We have 30 children whose ages ranged from 1 year 7 months to 14 years. 19 are girls and 11 are boys. All are children whose parents have died of AIDS. Most of these children were left with grandparents who were unable to take care of them or send them to school.

Twenty-nine(29) of these children are in school. The only child who is not in school is the baby, Mutinta. She was very sick at the time she was brought to us a few days just before Christmas. We have managed to meet most of the basic needs of the children, which include shelter, clothing, health, education and food.

They have four meals per day and their weekly menu includes; kapenta, beans, eggs, meat, chicken, vegetables, tea, bread and milk. Any fruits in season are made available to them.

We are planning to put up a playground for them as soon as we have the funds. Most of the children need extra lessons because their school work is not good. We need a lot of learning materials as well for their extra private lessons.

8. COMPUTER SKILLS COURSE

The courses currently being offered are:

1 Introduction to Computing & MS-DOS

2 Introduction to Windows

3. Advanced Word-processing

4. Advanced spreadsheet processing

ACHIEVEMENTS

The Computers Skills Department has been well received by Lusaka residents and especially by Makeni residents. The computer courses are of short duration and part-time. Initially, people only did one or two courses, but nowadays they prefer to do all the courses, hence the growing need for at least two more advanced courses to meet this demand. We have had a number of enquiries as to when the other courses will be introduced. The major problem is the lack of capacity to meet the cost for advanced programmes which are usually expensive, and students’ inability to meet the (external) examination fees.

COURSE ATTENDANCE STATISTICS:

The below figures reflect enrolments in 2001:

DESCRIPTION NO. OF STUDENTS GRADUATES


Intro. to Computing & MS-DOS 98 98


Intro. to Windows 55 55


Intro. to Word-Processing 48 48


Intro. to Spreadsheet processing 49 49

TOTAL NO. OF ENROLMENT OF STUDENTS 250 250

 

 

9. SETTLEMENT PROJECT

Most of the activities have continued to run in all the settlement villages. New demarcations of plots were made for seventeen new families settled in Chisamba, four in Mwomboshi and one in Mwembeshi. The total number of settlers as at 31st December, 2001 in the five villages were; Kafue 20, Chisamba 63, Mwomboshi 56, Kalwelwe 42 and Mwembeshi 86, hence making a total number of 267 families settled by MEC.

Despite the steps outlined in the previous report to control loan repayments more strictly, only 1% of the total loans were recovered.

The repayments were made by 3 settlers from Mwomboshi who represent 32% of the total amount repaid, 4 settlers in Mwembeshi representing 45%, 4 settlers from Chisamba representing 19% and 1 in Kalwelwe representing 4% of the total repayment.

Because of the very poor loan repayment situation, debts accrued by all settlers stood at approximately K220,000,000, a dollar equivalent of US$55,000 as at 31 December, 2001. MEC was forced to decide that we could not continue to pour money into this bottomless pit – both capital investment and loans had to be sharply reduced while old settlers are unable or refuse to repay loans

Also the Senior Settlement Officer, Mr. Roy Sikabuli, was retrenched in July, 2001. No replacement was made and his duties were split between the Agriculture and Finance staff.

The Agriculture Lecturer, Mr. Joel Silwenga, visited the villages as planned to give professional advice to the settlers. Some of the major problems experienced by settlers in the newer settlement villages that were brought to his attention include:

Plans have been made to increase borehole points and install wind mills to increase the water supply in all the villages. A severe drop in donor funding has contributed to the slowness or absence of adequate water provision in the new settlement villages. The provision of six boreholes, pumps, windmills, towers and tanks and piping will cost US$ 96,750.

 

10. Family Planning Project (=F/P)

This report outlines the Family Planning Project activities that were carried out between January and December 2001.

PROJECT GOAL

  1. The project was expected to serve 2000 clients per quarter.
  2. To conduct group teaching (F/P)
  3. To sensitise the people about HIV/AIDS, STD and F/P.
  4. To reintroduce video shows on HIV/AIDS, STDs and F/P.
  5. To recruit one nurse and a driver.

    1. RESULTS

    1. A total of 7,324 clients under Static Clinic were served, broken down as follows: 5,991 old clients and 1,433 new clients. A total of 2,678 clients under the Mobile Clinic Projects were seen during the year, broken down as follows - 1,614 old acceptors and 1,037 new clients.
    2. Group teaching on Family Planning was conducted from June 2001 when the new nurse was employed.
    3. Sensitisation of people about HIV/AIDS / STDs was conducted by the
    4. nursing staff from June to September 2001.

    5. Video Shows on HIV/AIDS were not reintroduced due to lack of staff.
    6. One nurse and one driver were recruited during the year under review.

10.2 STATISTICS

3000 injectable Noristerat, that were not available in 2nd quarter and were received in the 3rd quarter from Medical Stores through the Ministry of Health, were administered.

The Doctor came once every week to see clients with gynaecological problems. Eight clients were referred to UTH for further management.

20 were counselled for unwanted pregnancies and these babies were saved. We are opposed to abortions

We raised K2,136,300 from the sale of Cards and K442,500 from Doctor’s consultation.

    1. Additional staff: Mrs. C. Oreta was employed as HIV/AIDS Prevention Project Co-ordinator in
    2. October. She also went for outreach with the Mobile Clinic to assess the HIV/AIDS situation in

      the rural areas.

    3. During this year, we received two vehicles for the F/P Project, one a brand-new Ford, the other a

reconditioned Toyota. We are most grateful to the donors of these, Christians in Holland, and the availability of transport enabled us to improve services to the rural areas immediately.

10.5 MOBILE

The Mobile Clinic vehicle visited the following stations: Katobo, Munyati Shabasonje and Mukobela, which fall under the Mumbwa District. Kamakuti, Mwomboshi Primary School Chabusha Zambeef, Fringila and Seedling Farms which fall under Chisamba District. With the Zambia Helpers Society, we visited Sinjela, Muyanga; and also Mukonka Mwachilele, Namanongo, Chiota and Tengama which fall under Chongwe District, Mwanachikoka and Chipwili, which fall under Mumbwa and Kafue Districts.

10.6 STATISTICS FOR THE STATIC AND MOBILE CLINICS FROM JAN – DEC.

STATIC

MOBILE

 

NEW

OLD

SUPPLY

NEW

OLD

SUPPLY

PILL

416

1,760

6,961

763

1,061

7,132

INJ NORISTERAT

214

3,136

1,416

30

200

230

MALE CONDOMS

67

150

5,159

213

479

29,886

FEMALE CONDOMS

25

32

356

18

-

180

IUCD

-

4

4

-

-

-

FOAMING TABLETS

32

59

1,204

33

23

573

TOTAL

754

5,141

15,200

1,057

1,763

38,001

 

11. LIBRARY

The school calendar for the academic year 2001 started on the 7/1/2001, and since that date the library has been operational. It has been functioning smoothly without too many problems.

11.1 USERS ATTENDANCE

The use of the library has been very good by both the students and members of staff. The library, being a students’ library, has no capacity to accommodate the general public; therefore the clientele has been restricted to students and members of staff.

Students from all the departments are extensively using the library when doing their assignments and research, as well as reading for leisure such as novels and newspapers. Each department has a library period of one (1) hour per day.

Lecturers and teachers do their reading and research in the library. The Primary School also has a section in the library and the pupils have access to the reading materials through their teachers, who are allowed to borrow reading materials for their classes.

11.2 STAFF

The Librarian has been trained in Library Management. With the advent of information technology and the information explosion, there is need to provide accurate and reliable information, and also to make reading materials easily accessible and retrievable. With the knowledge that he has gained, there has been some re-organisation of the library materials.

11.3 LIBRARY FACILITIES

The library is housed in a beautiful building which is still in good condition. The shelves and the furniture are all in good condition despite being used so often.

11.4 READING MATERIALS

There is generally a decline in the volume of the reading materials especially in electronics, agricultural science, carpentry, and home economics . The decline in the reading materials is due to overuse. The small collections of books are being constantly used, resulting in damages and torn pages. Some volumes have been withdrawn because they are obsolete. Theft and removal of pages from books has also contributed to the decline of the volume of books.

There was a donation of reading materials from the British Council Library early last year, though most of the materials donated were outdated and do not conform to the curriculum of this institution.

There are some organisations who provide us with periodicals, such as Technical Centre for Agriculture and Information for Agriculture Centre who provide us with agricultural publications. These are very useful in the Agricultural Department.

With the aim of improving our library facilities, we have written to different organisations soliciting for new books and updated versions.

11.5 CONCLUSION

There is need to improve library services. The library collection needs to be enhanced and stocked with more and modern reading materials especially in electronics, agricultural science, home economics, computer and carpentry. There is urgent need for books to enhance an effective teaching and learning environment.

12. LIVESTOCK

The livestock unit is a sub-section of the Agricultural and Settlement departments. It consists of a piggery unit and poultry unit. These units are primarily used for training purposes.

The students form the major part of the required work force. The saleable stock is sold largely to the members of staff of MEC.

    1. Piggery
    2. In the year 2001, the piggery department had a total number of 28 pigs out of

      which:

      11 were sold

      2 breeding stock (1 boar and 1 sow)

      2 replacement stock (1 boar and 1 gilt)

      3 piglets died

      10 piglets not yet ready for sale

      Regrettably, the piggery made no profit during the year due to the low number of pigs, poor management and marketing conditions. Plans have been made radically to rectify management weaknesses and marketing practices.

    3. Poultry

The poultry project performed slightly better than the piggery in 2001. We rear 200 birds per batch. The mortality rate is 10% on average.

The total number of birds reared last year was 800 out of which 723 were sold. The income amounted to K5.8 million; expenditure was K6.7 million. the deficit was K0.9 million.

Problems

The major problem in the piggery unit is the cost-of-feed-ratio vs number-of-pigs.

The other problems are to do with infrastructure maintenance. The piggery floors and roots are damaged and will need attention. The poultry doors and locking systems also need some attention.

Recommendations

  1. The piggery can break-even if the number of breeding stock (especially sows) could be increased to eight.
  2. The poultry can perform far better if the number of batches could be increased from 8 to 11 batches per year.
  3. There is need to incorporate feed production in the livestock unit in order to reduce the cost of feed incurred on commercially produced feed. This will need additional part-time staff.

 

 

Signed:

 

C. M. Allen (Mrs)

Personnel & Administrative Manager.