Today was a very full day of meeting with organizations and people in the community. So many, in fact, that we had to split into two groups to cover them all. Amy and Liz did the more official government and university meetings. Lori, Beth, and I went to meet a group of people with disabilities in Chawama at the church we had visited yesterday. The poverty and need is so great here that it is hard to know how we can make any sort of a difference. I felt a little selfish. Our main purpose for being there was to gauge what was happening in the poorer communities and how their needs were and were not being met. So, they really had more to offer us than we most likely had to offer them.

A couple of really incredible things happened, though. We found out that none of them had ever met together as a group and they indicated that they wanted to continue to meet on a regular basis. So, they have their first group meeting a week from this Friday. Organizing as a group is certainly one way to start to take back some of your own power and work for a better way of life. Also, there were some non-secular staff from the church there and they were so surprised at how many people showed up and they had no idea that so many people with disabilities lived in the community.

From there, we went to lunch at an Indian restaurant…which struck me as kind of odd for some reason. On the way there, we saw LOTS of military starting to gather around the area of the president’s funeral on Wednesday. Brother Joseph referred to them as “very serious.” I believed him.


Our last stop of the day was at an Organization called ZAFOD(Zambian Federation of Disability Organizations). It was very interesting and dynamic…which is a polite way of saying there was tension. ZAFOD is a self-advocacy organization and one of the ways they advocate is by using the court system to set enforceable precedents in the legal system. One of the gentlemen we met with made a comment about how little the church helps in advancing the cause of people with disabilities. He also mentioned that they were considering suing the church at some point and that offended brother Joseph greatly. He said, “How can you sue someone you have never even met?” He was very insistent that the church is an inclusive place. I don’t think it is as inclusive as he thinks, but I don’t think it is as exclusive as the representative from ZAFOD thought. In the end, these two groups need each other and the reality is that it would be very difficult to effect any sort of change in Zambia without involving the churches.