The MMTA's industry link with Mufulira, Zambia

The library, Mufulira High School, Zambia

In 2008, the MMTA intitiated a link between our minor metals industry and the mining community of Mufulira in Zambia, at the heart of the copper belt; the geological band that stretches across the waistline of Africa. So arbitrary is the frontier in this region that the same ore bodies for copper pass from Zambia across into the Democratic Republic of Congo and back again, making the border trade of concentrates a feature of life in this region also.

Approximately 300,000 of Zambia’s approximate 12 million people live in the town of Mufulira which is in a highly urbanized part of Zambia. Most families are in some way involved with the mine, which was first excavated in 1933. In those days the ore at the surface graded at 5% Copper content. Today, the content is lower at 2% but with more efficient technology and deeper mining (up to 1.5 km down) the mine is still profitable for its owners. 70% of the town’s water comes from aquifers released through mining and pumped to the surface.

Assembly at Mano Basic School, Mufulira

Children in Mufulira attend a wide variety of state run schools, based on the British system adopted (and since adapted) following independence in 1964. Schools include Mufulira High School, Mano Basic, Muleya Winter Basic and many more which all do their best to provide an education that will satisfy the demands of a growing middle class (the young who have ambitions to grow up to be doctors, teachers, engineers). The late President, Dr Levy Mwanawasa, was originally a mining engineer from Mufulira. Many of the current members of government come from this town and some even gained their education in the schools mentioned above. In 1995, the people of Castle Cary in Somerset initiated a link between schools in this part of UK which has now endured over 15 years. The Cary-Mufulira Community Partnership Trust (CMCPT) was established, as well as its counterpart in Zambia, the Mufulira Cary Community Partnership Trust (MCCPT). Building durable links where both Zambia and UK communities can learn from each other has been the ethos. Getting close to each other as communities has had a powerful influence on both sides, providing the continuity that is required in order to make charitable work effective.

A patient at Kamuchanga Hospital, Zambia

Reliant on extractive industries at the base of what we do, merchants in the minor metals trade have understood that an industry link with such a region makes sense and in the last two years we were able to raise through individual donations, the MMTA's Christmas raffles and auction of promises over £30,000 which has been chanelled into furthering the exchanges between Zambia and UK. This money assisted with the funding of the incoming teachers and pupils from Zambia, as well as a series of specific small scale projects.

In March 2009, an anaesthetic machine was provided, thanks to an individual gift from two members of the MMTA, to a township hospital in the environs of Mufulira called Kamuchanga, serving 90,000 people. The surgeon had hitherto performed all minor operations without anaesthesia and the hospital was forced to send away patients in need of operations to larger hospitals further afield. Here at Kamuchanga this state run hospital was created from the buildings of a miner’s tavern, facilitated and originally made available via the Town Clerk, Mr Charles Mwandila, with whom the MMTA has contact. The hospital is growing in efficiency with the assistance of a very strong Rotary link and now with some MMTA assistance too. There is also an Aids clinic supported with anti-retroviral drugs supplied through US Aid programme as well as an X-Ray unit and services to fight malaria and TB. However, equipment, such as a washing machine which is more than 30 years old and broken, sometimes requires doctors, nurses and helpers to take sheets home to have them disinfected. In order to prevent the spread of disease, here is a typical example of a basic piece of machinery which the MMTA may be able to provide and which we are presently researching.

Here now is a list of some of the projects that MMTA members funds, all given at charity fund raisers have contributed towards:-

Project	Details	Benefits	Implementation	Budget
1.  Improvement of internet facilities at Mufulira High School	Install and support internet connection for MHS computer room (which currently has a phone line and computers) and make this available for appropriate student use.	Training of MHS teachers and students in internet and web use. Access to web information. Direct communication between exchange students. Supports development of three-way link between Ansford, MHS and Paddington Academy. First step towards more sophisticated conferencing facility.	Agree with the Administration at MHS a policy whereby students can use the facility. During Review Team visit identify teacher at MHS to lead the project from that end.Identify a member of AS staff to do likewise. Identify two students in each country who will work with the teachers.Could include support towards IT specialist to travel to Mufulira to help	£1,000
2.  Support of less well-off families involved in the exchange	Where families have been asked to provide specific elements of exchange cost, subsidise those families unable to pay.	Selection of students ceases to disadvantage those from poorer families. Exchange groups become more representative of the communities they come from.	Discussion with school leaders in AS and MHS of how a subsidy of this sort can be fairly and confidentially implemented. Set up an ongoing fund in both countries, managed through CMCPT and MCCPT	£1,000
3.  Existing project support (Muleya Winter Basic, in the area of Mufulira polluted by the mine)	Muleya Winter Basic School in Mufulira has an imaginative project in hand which uses its Home Economics Room (refurbished through funding from UK) to teach HE and to provide meals for orphaned and disadvantaged pupils.  Enterprise projects using the equipment raise money to make the project sustainable, and also provide skills learning.	The orphans learn better, attend school regularly, are healthier as a result of extra meals. The HE room continues to be an effective teaching resource. The school's link team, which manages the project, feels a motivating sense of achievement. Exchange students can act as ambassadors for the support of the project and learn how participative development projects work.	Review Team visit to school (also to discuss future Exchange Student involvement with Basic Schools in Mufulira) to advise that further funding may be available. Muleya Winter Basic School to submit current accounts for the project and a plan of how a further contribution could be spent to work towards sustainability. Possibly identification of UK “friend” to act as a project adviser	£500
4.  Linking support. (initially Castle Cary Primary School)	Support for teachers travelling on behalf of well-established links where other funding is not available and the link will falter through lack of finance. In the first instance this support to be offered to Castle Cary Primary School, which is re-establishing its link with Muleya Winter Basic	The maintenance of a network of links strengthens the overall link between Mufulira and Somerset. The student exchange benefits from this network which provides contacts and settings for them to explore and work with which widen their experience and understanding of the other country. Schools can be encouraged to make their visits reciprocal.	CMCPT to discuss with Castle Cary Primary School.	£500
5.  Provision of books for Mufulira School Library	Provide for additional books for the school library. The library was set up from funding from an Big Lottery International Grant but is in great need of further books. A Librarian has recently been appointed who needs encouragement and support.	Continued existence of MHS Library gives MHS students an effective study facility. Possible link between MHS Library, its Librarian and Student Librarians with their counterparts in UK will encourage and help MHS Library and increase AS understanding of development issues. Possibly establish MHS Library as a base for MHS debating society and  experiment with interschool debates on global issues via internet	Review Team (especially the students) hold initial discussions with Mr Bwalya and his student librarians to establish how the books will be selected, bought and be made available for use to students in a way which does not allow them to be stolen. Initial discussions via students and patron of debating club on how the internet connection can be used for debate and information. Ongoing support during exchange visits.	£1,000
6.  Further support for specific links.	Other school links are also in need of support.	Specifically Bruton/Mine school, Queen Camel/Mufulira Basic.		£1,000
			Total	£5,000

 

There is a quote in the book by Dee Brown, ‘Bury My Heart At Wounded Knee’ (1970) attributed to Crazy Horse, the Oglala Sioux Leader

                     ‘One does not sell the earth upon which the people walk’

Smelter emissions, Mufulira, Zambia

 

Unfortunately, metal merchants, commodity traders and miners do. Moving earth, the ore, is what we do for a living. Perhaps in some way we can move the product of that earth, high tech equipment and some human kindness back in return.

If anyone reading this would like to know more about the work we are trying to do in Mufulira, please contact me, Anthony Lipmann on 01932 224344 or Roland Chavasse, MMTA's Executive at the MMTA offices. We can guide and talk about specific targeted projects in Mufulira and we can also facilitate trips more widely in Zambia via the eco-friendly and not-for-profit travel organisation INTRO-ZAMBIA who have access to a Bungalow in Mufulira and which is used as a base for the work we do and whose guidance has been essential in building the MMTA-Mufulira link. Contact: Dr Laura Tilling on 01963 351461 or see http://www.introzambia.co.uk/.