Serving in rural areas for a decade

With the bond that i have created with rural areas across Zambia, it is hard to believe that the light that once shined is becoming deem. Is it because I invested the whole of my life in in a so called " rural development environment before I developed myself"? If so then I realize that I needed to equip myself academically before committing myself rural development.

Of course it takes experience to realize and now I have realized how important it is to develop yourself before you develop a rural area for sustainability to take off?

From my own observation during financial difficulties in Machaworks, everyone has become confused to worry about their own future not the organization. When I listen to most former employees of machaworks, everyone is talking about his/ her future security. I'm sure if we first invested in entrepreneurship many people would have stayed because their future would have been guaranteed by what they have invested in.

Rural development is very difficult to sustain as most needs like universities and colleages are located a long the line of rail hence making it difficult for rural delopers to acces. In Lusaka people are privileged to access education, good health and transport while people in rural areas continues to struggle with their limited resources even if things become hard!

Therefore it is/ has been a pleasure serving under these challenges which are are hard to overcome.

The future advise I would give to rural based organization would be first to develop leaders not only through exposure but also through academics for sustainability sake.

PEOPLE IN URBAN OFFICES AND RURAL DEVELOPMENT!!

Each time I visit an urban office like Lusaka, I feel like vomitting blood because these people so called "experts, educated" are so reluctant in decision making. I remember visiting one organization which is sitting on billions of Kwachas which is meant for national development to uplift the rural lives but unfortunately they are just there to warm their lazy chairs and wait for heft salaries at the end of the month!!

When are people from rural areas going to benefit from the national cake? The answer is that unless and until people with the right vision lead this country and occupy the right offices.

Imagine the digital gap between urban and rural areas is not even imaginable? Will this not bring some uprising in future after rural have realized much they have been deprived since independence?? I wonder!!!

I always travel this government agency whose name I shall not mention only to cheated that money will realized when in the actual sense it not. They keep on extending the date when money will be released. This is actually utter rubbish this kind of cheating will bring agony to them one day!!!!!!

Macha Bee-keepers association

Among entrepreneurial activities in Macha community is a bee-keeping association project situated at Mabweatuba in Macha.

The bee-keeping initiative was natured by Mr. Misheck Chimbongwe in 2001 after realizing the potential of the project.

Simple bee-hives are being used; see below;


 Currently the  bee-keeping project at Macha serves as a small income generating  activity for both men and women in the community with the following objectives:

1. create an African mind free through the use of natural resource

My experience with visiting urban offices in Zambia

I have observed with sadness that each time I visit an urban based office, I either have to wait for the minimum period of 4hours or more. This results in the increased costs our time and also our monetary resources.

It is a pity that our urban based colleagues do not consider that the communities that we serve are very poor such if such a practice continues will result in resource drains.

Apart from that, our urban based communities keep on post poning the meetings to further dates. This to me is a big shame because only few people have interest to invest their time, energy,lives in resource limited areas.

Virtual Offices, Could this be the future possibility?

Virtual offices, could this be the future possibility if wireless intenet was to be vigorously spread across the country? It is evident, firstly the introduction of internet at rural Macha has made significant developments in the community,Macha is in Choma district of Southern province of Zambia. The availability of internet has defeated the high poverty levels in the community, poor road network until it was tired in 2010, no fm or shortwave radio signal until vision community radio Macha came back to life in March 2010, no access to landline telephone network through zamtel until Celtel came in end of 2007, no access to international market for example buying of second hand vehicles from Japan, limited access to medical facilities, the list goes on....

Secondly, the flooding of smartphones with wifi and 3G network on the international market whose functions are similar to that of a laptop and desk-top computer have completely changed the ways of communication. At rural Macha, people who own smart phones no longer need to be in their offices, this is due to the expansion of internet network which covers the range of 3KM radius at rural Macha. This has enabled experts like doctors, teachers, farmers and members of the community to have access to internet wherever they are! yesterday while going to the hospital, I found a person under the shed accessing internet through wifi and when I greeted him, he did not respond to me because he was badly taken by our fast wireless network.

Is Maintenance of the Network sustainable?

Yes, our vibrant wireless internet is well maintained by our local heroes, these local heroes have been trained in Macha and they have trained local heroes from other rural communities across the country.


How does the future of internet perceived in rural areas?

In the near future people will no longer have physical offices, as they will be able to access internet where ever they shall be, people will no longer carry heavy machines like laptops, but shall instead carry smartphones, kindles, Ipads, Ipods and other portable gadgets, people shall no longer gather in one place for meetings, the world will no longer be a global village but a global family, virtual universities shall be many.

However to achieve this, internet costs should be lowered in order for an ordinary Zambia citizen to have access to internet. The ICT policy has to be perfected by ICT experts but not only politicians who may not see or know its valuable use.

Please our government, help us in rural areas and Zambia at large by subsidizing the internet costs.

No Internet, no good economy, no future!!!!

Involvement of traditional leaders in community development

I have observed with keen interest that the distribution of national resources has been from top to bottom in African countries leaving traditional leaders hand-caped with little or no participation to provide an upper hand in developmental activities forgeting that they are the people leading the majority citizens in the country. About 60 percent of people in Africa particularly Zambia leave in rural areas.

The consequences of such approach is that development does not reach the needy, (rural people) because resources finish before they reach the bottom level especially that decisions are made by the central government about how national resources should be allocated.

Up to this time, the majority of rural areas in Africa(Zambia) do not have access to mobile phone, radio reception, TV reception and access to good roads. Because of these challenges people in rural communities have difficulties to develop their own areas. The question is who is responsible to develop rural areas? I guess it is the responsibility of the government to create an enabling environment which will attract investors to invest in rural areas, such investment will create employment to the local people.

However, I still believe that traditional should play an important role in governance because they are always with the people and their term of office is permanent as compared to elected government officials whose term expires after the period of 5 years in most democratic countries.

I also suggest that chiefs should have a big stake in decision making at national level. This will help  accelerate from bottom level to top level.


The government should learn from the emerging models in rural areas which involve the local people by: first visiting a chiefs, organizing stakeholders of that particular community, select a local talent from the same community and have him/her trained, after trainings the local talent is sent back to his/her community to be in charge of his/her own development.


I'm pretty sure that this is the kind of development everyone would like to see.

Effects of ICT to the Zambian tradition

Despite culture being dynamic, Zambia/Africa has strong value system on traditions. However, the old generation say that Information Communication and Technology (ICT) has broken the traditions. Because of this, a platform between the old and new generation has been created to critically look at the effects of ICT on the traditional value system. Since the introduction of technology in Zambia, according to senior headman Macha, the following have been observed; young people have broken the traditions for example when a phone rings a young person would quickly answer it while seated with elders without an excuse, this offends elders as they feel not respected, pupils sometimes have more knowledge than teachers especially those pupils who spend much time on research, this has made teachers feel inferior since they believe that they the only masters in teaching

The new generation has a strong argument, they say that ICT is a critical and valuable ingredient to the preservation of our precious African culture,  ICT is the only solution to preserve the culture and, information can be shared and transmitted within seconds at global level. In Zambian culture, information has been monopolized by the old people such that when an old man/woman dies he goes with information to the grave leaving the young generation without a (traditional library)

Upon hearing such conversations from the community I approched his royal highness chief Chikanta who is currently serving as vice chairman in the Zambian house of chiefs and represented the following observation on ICT ; "we really appreciated what Information Communication Technology does because as tradition leaders, we are now able to exhibit our culture, traditions and customs to the rest of the world, this has made us to exist, to be recognized and participate at global level, my people are now able to check for the market price for their crops"

In conclusion, I have observed that whether in urban or rural areas, ICT is a valuable ingredient to the expansion of economic and social muscle in rural areas of Zambia