My joining AMDA
 In 2004 before I joined AMDA, I had been working as a lecturer at two private colleges. I was offering Sociology, Psychology and Social work to students who were pursuing teaching as their career.
In May 2004, a vacancy was announced for an officer who would coordinate community activities at the community centre.
Although I loved teaching, I decided to change and entered into social work, something I had been thinking to do in my life. Same month, I attended an interview and succeeded to work as a junior officer from the following month. In another aspect, it was really a big decision for me as my salary dropped by almost one-third.
My Memory
The local staff members in AMDA Zambia had committed themselves to their work and had carried out a lot of activities in restructuring operations so as to help local communities. We introduced few IGA such as tuck shop, water project, car park, computer lessons, and recreation centre in addition to farming as the major activity that had helped us to raise some income although it was a struggle. When I talk about farming, it is about growing soya beans, vegetables and rearing chickens which was the major source of income. Dividends were once distributed to assist TB treatment supporters. The objective of these activities was not only empowering local volunteers but also sustainability to continuously improve nutrition for mothers and children.
Here, I wouldn’t forget Dr Virgil Hawkins, a former country director of AMDA-Zambia, who contributed a lot in putting up the system in place. I do remember seeing him holding a hoe and watering the farm. That gave a great encouragement to all the staff and truly have we worked as a team regardless of where s/he comes from.
With what we produced from the farm we assisted malnourished children from George Health Centre and we also supported TB patients with the provision of soya beans. This really impressed me and I realised that people have the potential to develop if time and resources are made available.
My Learning
My Challenges
These days, development concept is at a revolutionary stage where people define it from a sustainability point of view. Whatever we do, a question arises, whether it is sustainable, in other words, whether it continues without any support from outside. This poses me a big challenge because the project used to receive items for distribution to community workers as incentives. Entering the new phase,all that was gone instead Dr. Hawkins asked me to put up long term measures that would help the community to learn how to survive with minimum resources available. People at this time reacted negatively and stopped coming for community activities, as they no longer benefited from those items. It was a difficult time for me as I did not want to fail.
To attempt a breakthrough, we changed a strategy and employed full-time workers to manage the farm. After struggle, this change even helped, in the end, those who did not understand above-mentioned revolution and ran away from the farm. For me it was the achievement.
Another challenge was associated with the budget scale of AMDA-Zambia’s projects. Being a small organisation compared to some other big organizations with a lot of money which also engage in health arena in Lusaka, community volunteers tend to prefer working with those big organization that provide monetary incentives. It was a real challenge. Sustainability concept was not easily accepted. But through continuous emphasis on voluntarism contributing one’s own community, people started understanding our goal. At this point of time I would like to state that I am proud of being a part of AMDA-Zambia leading to success with little resource. We have become famous in Lusaka District not because of big money but because of great contribution we have shown through our activities. We have become an icon even to other organisation when talking about how to tap and utilise the capacity of local human resources. From time to time other organisations planning to conduct training for volunteers are referring to our office, and for me that is a great achievement out all the challenges we went through.
My Expectation
I would also like to see our local staff being empowered with capacity building especially in relation to the field activities. Our staff members have full capacity to make a difference in the community and the health sector. It is high time we start preparing for our future responsibilities as managers and coordinators. Yes I know it might not be today or tomorrow but in the soonest time.
I really want to achieve something substantial in serving people and their life in different ways. I work so hard not as a manager but just like anybody else. Off course, I am working with some personal expectation, too. Things should become better both financially and technically. The other expectation I have is that working with NGO would give a lot of exposure in different countries either outside or inside Africa especially Japan. Though it may take long to come forth, I know one day it will …..
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