What is Kondwa?

The name “Kondwa” means “be happy”, and this is the goal of this day center for orphans. It is a place to bring happiness into the lives of about 100 orphaned children ages 3 to 8 in one of the most deprived areas of Lusaka, Zambia. It is a safe place for these orphaned children to play, learn, and eat a meal. In most cases, it is their only meal for the day. The staff who run this program are all volunteers.

Where is Kondwa?

It is located in the Ng’ombe compound on the outskirts of Zambia’s capital, Lusaka. Zambia is one of the southern countries in Africa, an area most affected by the AIDS virus.

Why Kondwa?

I volunteered at Kondwa in the summer of 2006 as a research assistant to Professor Aptekar, head of the service-learning program at San Jose State University, Counselor Education department. I had the opportunity to share both joys and heartaches with these children, and I did it again in 2007. After dedicating many hours to developing my master’s thesis project, which consists of a counseling program specifically for these children to help them through their grief process, I was given the opportunity to implement it in July and August of 2007. I conducted workshops for girls and helped them with the following:

assessment of current life stressors, symptoms, and coping strategies

verbalization, identification, and expression of feelings

assessing family relationships and support networks

enhancement of problem-solving skills and coping strategies

The activity that I found to have the greatest significant and positive impact was that of the memory book. The children took time to reflect upon the wonderful memories of their loved ones who have died by working through a series of activities and answering questions in their memory book. The children participated in another very powerful activity known as psychodrama that entailed acting out events in their life related to the loved one(s) who died. They were given a sense of empowerment by being given the chance to act out what they wished had happened in a particular time in their life. As a result, healing begins to take place. It’s YOUR HELP that allows me to get to Zambia to reach these children year after year!

---