February 2026

Hello again to all of our wonderful donors and supporters in this, our 20^th anniversary year of the Project!

While we’ve had a pretty wet start to the year here in the UK, Zambia has had a rainy season of intense downpours and storms, with associated flooding and disruption to daily life. Term 1 of the academic year started on 12 January, but the Project Committee’s preparations (buying uniforms, books and shoes) had to be postponed for a couple of days because of the extreme rainfall. This is in stark contrast, you might remember, to two years ago when an unprecedented drought led to severe food shortages, water scarcity and a national emergency declaration…

Last year’s harvest was better than the previous year and there was no need for emergency food parcels, but the Committee decided they’d like to give the children some hampers at Christmas and they set about putting together hampers of sugar, salt, spaghetti, soya pieces and cooking oil (very different to our hampers of chocolates and biscuits but very much appreciated!). This is Margret (below) collecting her ‘hamper’.

Margret (or Ngabile as we know her) was one of our 8 school leavers in December and we’ve followed her progress with interest over the years. We first met her parents, who were HIV positive, when we got involved in building a piggery in Ngalaweni village in 2006. Her mother died in 2015, leaving 6 children, three of whom were some of the original children helped by the Project. Of those three boys, Lottie is now an electrician, Dingi is an agricultural officer and Dave, after studying mathematics at university, is working as a maths teacher.

We’re happy to report that all 8 school leavers passed their Grade 12 exams this year and will be going on to skills training or teacher training.

No teacher training students left the Project in December but we have recruited five new school students for 2026 to replace the skills students who have now completed their courses.

Robert (below), aged 17, is a double orphan living with his sister who tries to make a living selling tomatoes. He has enrolled in Grade 10 at Chipata Day School.

Joining him at Chipata Day School are Angela, a single orphan aged 17, Naomi, aged 15, a single orphan whose mother does piece work, Nannia, aged 16, who lives with his aunt, and Leah, aged 15, whose single mother is working as a hairdresser. All these families (along with lots of others!) have been finding it extremely challenging to provide food and school necessities for the young people they look after.

When we came to prepare the budget for 2026 last October, we found that prices of uniforms, shoes, books, paper, extra tuition (for those in exam grades) and lab coats (for students in teacher training) have increased, making it even harder for families. As usual, the Committee members in Chipata have been putting in long hours to ensure that everyone in the Project (new and existing) has everything they need for either school or college. In addition, they’ve been busy overseeing some building work…

Those of you who’ve been supporting the Project for a long time might remember that, when we went out to Chipata in 2018, we visited the shops that the Committee had built to provide a rental income for the Project (as part of their long-term plan for self-sustainability, reducing their reliance on fundraising in the UK). We thought their location on the Great East Road, being close to both a new hospital and a new university campus that was being built, was excellent and gave our wholehearted support to the Committee’s further plans to build some rooms behind the shops to accommodate university students. A borehole and hand pump were installed on the site but, unfortunately, further work had to be put on hold when construction of the new campus stopped. The Committee enterprisingly built some bed spaces in a different location,  initially housing students studying at a nursing college. Recently, however, construction of the university campus was restarted by DMI-St.Eugene University and was finished in time to take in students for the 2026 academic year. The Project Committee drew up their plans once more, we sent money for construction materials and, despite the adverse weather, a flat took shape.

Foundations were laid in late November and now electricity has been connected, painting is almost finished and, once beds and mattresses have been purchased, the accommodation (with 12 bed spaces) will be ready to welcome its first students. What an amazing achievement in such a short time!

In news of our ‘old’ students, we hear that Sam (one of our original children, who is now senior auditor with the Ministry of Finance) was recently chosen to travel to France and Germany to do the audits at the Zambian embassies, and that Naomi recently met up with Mofya, whose graduation photo we included in a recent newsletter. She is now teaching at a private school in Solwezi (capital of North Western Province).

We were delighted to hear that Mkanda (who was helped by the Project in 2007 and was pictured in his office in our last update) has decided to help two children with school requisites this year. Sam and Wilson (who is working as a hospital surgeon) are already helping a number of children (giving something back to the Project which helped them fulfil their potential).

This is only one of the many things that leave us really optimistic for the future of St Paul’s Children’s Project in Zambia. Twenty years on from the start of the Project, we count ourselves extremely fortunate to have been working all this time with Naomi and a Committee in Chipata who have been enthusiastic, tenacious and, above all, laser-focused on improving the lives of young people in their community. Of course, none of us could have got to this point without your remarkable support and once more we want to say how grateful we are to everyone who makes a monthly or annual donation or who’s supported us with a one-off donation (we’ve had some very generous ones lately). Your generosity is making such a difference to the lives of disadvantaged young people.

Malcolm and Elaine