Hope for Grieving Children is an organization dedicated to making a difference in the lives of children like Graham Musando. He is a six year old orphan in Linda Compound, Lusak Province, Zambia. It is one of the poorest areas in Lusaka. He attends a school that is located in a church.
His pastor, Rev. Sydney Mutupa (African Methodist Episcopal), recently told of a day in which Graham appeared weak and disoriented when he arrived at school. Immediately his teacher went to him, sat at his side and asked “When did you last have something to eat?” Graham replied, “I have had not food for two days.”
Graham’s teacher sent for some tea and biscuits, which Graham consumed in seconds. Slowly he regained his senses. He accomplished very little that day. It took time for the food to restore him sufficiently to attend to what was going on around him.
Pastor Mutupa said that this has never happened to Graham before but that every child in his school shows signs of serious hunger from time to time. He knows that coming to school hungry is the normal pattern for children who are orphans. All of the pupils in his school are orphans. He would like to provide each child with a simple meal before school starts. It could be the only meal they receive for the day. But where will the pastor find the money to support this effort?
HOPE FOR GRIEVING CHILDREN – AFRICA
There are at least 800,000 children in Zambia whose circumstances mirror Graham's. They live in extreme poverty.
Some of these children have no adult supervision or support. They live in the streets. They can be found in every city, town, or village in Zambia but most tend to wander into the streets of the larger cities such as Lusaka or Ndola. They must steal to have food. They have no access to education. They have no hope for improved circumstances.
We want to try to provide education and counseling for those who care for these children. Also, we want to provide counseling for the children as well as food and educational opportunities.
Our number one mission is to educate the people of Zambia concerning the orphans in their midst. We want to provide this through pastors and local churches.
We have been active in Zambia since 2004. We began with training pastors in a curriculum we developed, “How to Love a Grieving Child.” It is designed to equip pastors to be informed educators and counselors as they respond to caregivers and orphans who seek their advice and support. Without this understanding the caregivers will never grasp why orphans behave differently from other children, and they will never provide the sympathetic care the children need.
Children who have been traumatized by the death of their parents do not think or behave like other children. They tend to withdraw socially, perform poorly in school, and display a variety of symptoms that are confusing to their guardians and caregivers. Those symptoms include anger, nightmares, withdrawal, regression, inability to concentrate, memory failure, suicidal behavior, depression, and more. The confusion that results from these patterns often causes the people who genuinely wish to care for these children to neglect, avoid, reject, abuse, or punish the children. Consequently the children are doubly wounded by what is no fault of their own -- their grief.
One pastor, Rolita Mochila (Evangelical Lutheran Church of Zambia) reports that when she taught the guardians and caregivers in her congregation, the response was: “We did not know that children go grieving for a long period... I never used to understand the behavior of orphans I keep.”
The training has been well-received by the pastors and leading laypersons who attended:
“The training just changed my life and helped me know how to handle a grieving child in my family and church.” Pastor, Kenny Manimela, Kabwata Pilgrim Wesleyan Church.
“The main value was involving myself in the grieving children problems... understanding their problems. Know how to assist them or help them..” Pastor John Kayembe, Lutheran.
Since 2004 we have trained 125 pastors from ten denominations in our curriculum, How to Love a Grieving Child. We expect to train 60 more in November of 2008. This will give us at least 185 pastors and laypersons who are thoroughly trained.
However, we also have started to provide a certification process that will equip pastors and laypersons to do the training we have been doing. We expect to have 40 of these trained by mid-2008. Each will train ten others. By mid-2009 we are confident that there will be 585 trained pastors and laypersons. This will go a long way toward changing the mind-set of the people who care for the orphans. And that should lead to far more effective care for the children, along with diminished incidents of rejection and abuse.
OUR GOALS FOR 2008 THROUGH 2009
Non-governmental Organization:
An important development from the training we have been doing for the past four years has been the desire of the pastors to form a new organization -- one that would allow them to work more closely together on the complex and urgent problems of orphans. Working together is awkward when pastors represent ten denominations of widely diverse traditions and structures.
The denominations and structures include Evangelical Lutheran Church of Zambia, Reformed Church, Roman Catholic Church, Pilgrim Wesleyan Church, Anglican Church, Lutheran Church of Central Africa, African Methodist Episcopal, Pentecostal Church, Adventist Church, Brethren in Christ Church. There is every indication that there will be more as the pastors work together and make their impact on what is happening for orphans in Zambia.
The non-governmental organization is now fully registered under the name of Hope for Grieving Children -- Zambia. In order to achieve this they had to have a constitution and officers.
NGO Priorities for 2008-2009:
1. Continuing training for pastors in the basics of “How to Love a Grieving Child.” Up to sixty pastors will experience this training in November of 2008.
2. Advanced Training for pastors who wish to become certified to teach other pastors and leading laypersons in the curriculum, “How to Love a Grieving Child.” Twenty four will experience this training in April, 2008. Each will then train ten others. For this effort each will receive a stipend plus expenses incurred by the training.
3. “All the Children of God.” -- a program to reach children who are living in the streets. The children served by this program are without any support from adults or from the state. The program will be modeled after one started by pastor John Chilufya in Choma. It began in 2004. It now serves 350-400 children. The children receive one meal per day, basic education, counseling if requested, and recreational activity. Because these children would normally be stealing to eat, the crime rate in Choma has been reduced 90% since the program started. This program will be replicated in 10 places in the next two years.
4. “Educating Every Child” -- a program designed to improve the educational opportunities of orphans. Very few orphans attend school. The families that keep them typically cannot pay the fees demanded by the public schools. “An Education for Every Child” is designed to support those local churches that are providing basic education for children whose parents who have no funds to pay the fees of the public schools. These schools are also trying to provide counseling and at least one meal per day to the students. This initiative also includes expanding the number of schools in local churches.
5. Grinder program. Providing rural people with the means for grinding the maze with which they make nshema (a staple food substance for Zambians similar to 'grits'). Currently many village people must travel great distances to have their meal ground. It is a costly process. By providing portable grinders that are manually operated, we hope to spare them the expense of having their maze ground commercially. This will leave them with more money for food and other needs.
