Zambia

Zambia, a completely landlocked country in southern Africa, is renowned for its kind-hearted people and welcoming culture. Though the country has experienced more peace than most African nations, it has not found economic prosperity, namely due to the mid-1990s market collapse of its major natural resource, copper. The people of Zambia suffer many economic hardships, which contribute to its having one of the world’s most devastating HIV/AIDS epidemics.

Zambia was the location of Hands at Work’s first expansion outside of South Africa. In 2001, Hands at Work entered the northern Copperbelt region of Luanshya and spread soon after to the Central region of Kabwe. Subsequently, the work has expanded to many communities surrounding Kabwe and Luanshya and plans are underway to move into the eastern region of Chipata and west into Mongu. Zambia is a geographically strategic location, from which expansion is happening into very poor communities in DRC, Malawi, and Zimbabwe.

A Chain of Giving

Fifty-two-year-old Agnes Kunda began volunteering in the Shalom community organisation of Kabwe, Zambia in 2003. The divorced woman’s children were grown and moved out of her home when she became a volunteer and she showered all of her motherly love and care onto the patients and vulnerable children she dedicated herself to visiting.

In 2007, Agnes became ill and tests revealed that she was HIV positive. This former volunteer of the home-based care suddenly became a patient, who with the help of her fellow volunteers began taking medication that would keep her alive. Today, Agnes continues to battle her illness, but her active devotion as a volunteer has not ceased. Though unable to visit children and patients like she used to, Agnes has taken two orphaned children into her own home to provide them a place to live safely and be cared for lovingly. Agnes’ story is one of a chain of giving: Agnes receives as a patient of the HBC, but also continues to give, sewing into the lives of two young children.