chikulupililo Empowerment Community

Chikulupililo Empowerment Community (CECO), registered as -NPO committed to socially-inclusive peri-urban transformation in Ndola, Zambia. It was established in 2009; the organisation embraces social development programmes in its endeavours which are aimed at facilitating the empowerment of marginalized communities, through access to services, opportunities, resources and infrastructure that they would normally be unable to access. We work in an area that holds an attraction of fortune, hope and prosperity. The people from rural areas stands to prove this. The rate of influx and that of development is so imbalanced that it leads to an unprepared city that is heavily pulled down instead of progressing to development. There are many at-risk or near homeless people living in overcrowded homes. HIV/AIDS is very high in Zambia cutting across all age groups especially the youth. This has led to a large number of orphans in either child headed homes or with the elderly who in most cases are themselves unemployed. Some end up on the streets and the number of children living on the streets is on a high increase. There is a large number of women that are illiterate and are inactive economically. Year 2000 statistics on the copper belt province show that in every 3 females, 1 is illiterate which is 66.8% and the number has since been rising. This impacts the women as they are dependant mostly on the men thus putting them at risk of different kinds of abuse. Those that are in entrepreneurship lack business skills and so end in hand to mouth business or total bankruptcy. Others lack financial means and so end up in discreet sex work. Despite this, the demand on women to earn money and survive is high in this community because the bread winners who were the men have lost their jobs due to closure of most industries in the industrial area which was a harbor of financial survival. The youth are forced to drop out of school landing into early marriages or single parenthood due to poverty and a lack or inaccessible support systems. Lack of recreational programmes force them into risky lifestyles and crime. Pre- school children provide an opportunity to do preventive work. There are many parents who cannot afford day care for their babies or toddlers and most times they are left alone or with siblings a little older than themselves as the parents go out to seek food and basics.