Mufulira Housing Village Project
The Zambia National Council has a couple of projects managed by the Board. Among these projects is the Mufulira Housing Village. This project began as a nursery school initiated by a particular council in Mufulira, located at St. Lawrence in Kantanshi Township. However, the school project could not be sustained because the building housing the nursery school collapsed. This prompted the council leadership to apply for a piece of land from the Mufulira Municipal Council to continue the school project, and land was granted. However, work on the land could not commence due to a lack of funds. An application for financial support was then submitted to the National Office for consideration through the Kitwe Central Council, under the leadership of Sister Rosemary Chambala, the current Board Vice Secretary. On August 31, 2004, the first Mufulira Housing Village Board committee was appointed, headed by the National Council President, the late Brother Kangwa.
There are 8 fully furnished houses in the village. Four of these are two-bedroomed, and the other four are three-bedroomed, all of which are self-contained. The initial plans for the houses intended them to serve as an SOS village, especially for the elderly and abandoned individuals across the country. However, due to a lack of funds to support the upkeep of residents and maintenance costs, this plan could not be realized. Instead, the National Council has rented out the houses, and the proceeds from the rentals go toward assisting those in need through identified central councils.
Chisamba Ozanam Farm
The International Confederation General through VINPAS appointed a committee of former National Presidents to prepare a Project Proposal for Africa and among the projects identified were; Agriculture, Education (Community Schools) and capacity building training. Zambia however submitted a project proposal in farming and hence Chisamba Ozanam Farm Land was procured with the initial vision of setting up an Agriculture training centre for Southern Africa. Agric equipment were procured and installed and the Farm started operating under the supervision of CGI technical experts through VINPAS, however under the initial agreement, VINPAS was to train local technical farm experts to manage the farm before it was officially handed over to the National Council, the handover was done without training local managers a situation which has resulted failure to manage the farm productively due to lack of technical experts as banking on the Board has failed since Board members come and go.
Education &Bursary support to the vulnerable families especially double orphaned students
Zambia has been supporting identified students from all the 32 Central Councils with Education support with the help of Dublin East Region and over 1,670 have benefited since the program started. The National Council through a bursary committee reviews application forms from all the 32 Central Councils in Zambia and currently due to inadequate funds only 5 students per Council are selected for Bursary Support bringing the number to 160, in addition, conferences like St. Ignatius. Mary Immaculate, Christ the King, St. Mary’s, Good Shepherd, Infant Jesus, St. Joseph among others assists up to between 200 to 300 new students annually as supplementary to the National Council program. National Council also supports the three identified Community Schools, St. Francis of Mongu, Western Province, Kamanga Community School, Lusaka and Chigayo Community School in Kitwe, Copperbelt, with funds allowing, the National Council intends to start helping another Community School in Monze Central Council called St. Vincent de Paul Community with some School materials.
