New Clinic At Chongo School

It seems we are getting ever more involved with disabled children, remarked the director recently - he has already told us that those with disabilities are at risk of being 'forgotten', and on his recent visit to Zambia, he discovered another collection of them.

The director was taken along an ill-kept rural road to a point about 14km from Monze, and discovered Chongo, a rural school catering for over six hundred children. Of these, 26 are disabled, and they are boarded in two extremely dilapidated buildings, and left largely to fend for themselves, and gather their own firewood for cooking.

They are cared for by one hard-working housemother, who recently walked all night to carry one sick child to hospital, and then go all the way back to be at school in time to start her work.

However, the buildings have potential - the head teacher has agreed to let us have one for a clinic, and if we open one, the mission hospital will station a nurse there.

It looks like around £5,000 for the work and materials, and a further £500 for a donkey and cart to transport the children. More 'forgotten' and unwanted ones keep cropping up. On his last visit, the director was handed a deaf child and told 'just take her'. Meanwhile, at the Hope school for the deaf, our new worker Lisa has already rescued a deaf child who appeared to be being starved because, being deaf, he was unwanted.