Mount St. Mary's College & Chikuni

Mount St. Mary’s, a Catholic secondary school in Sheffield, is linked to Chikuni Mission, Zambia. Their connection is known as Mwabuka, a Tonga word meaning “Good Morning” or “You have arisen”.

In October 2004, Alan Fernandes of Jesuit Missions gave a presentation to Mount St. Mary’s to introduce Mwabuka. Alan was well equipped to talk about Chikuni as he spent several weeks there doing research on Home Based Care for people with HIV/AIDS. In his presentation, Alan told the pupils about Home Based Care and the need for a new vehicle; the current vehicle, not only being borrowed but much dilapidated.

Mount St. Mary’s College

Mount St Mary's College was first founded by Jesuit fathers at Stanley Grange near Derby in 1620. At this time the Penal laws were fully implemented against Catholics and the fathers of the English Province of the Society of Jesus.

After numerous changes, the College was formally opened under the dedication of the Immaculate Conception in the hamlet of Spinkhill, a property of the Pole family. The College opened in 1842; its founder was Rev. Randall Lythgoe, SJ Provincial of the Society of Jesus in England.

Chikuni Mission

In 1905, a French Jesuit, Fr. Moreau, established Chikuni parish midway between Lusaka (the capital) and Livingstone. Chikuni parish is a living example of the strength of community and of people taking opportunities to develop themselves. Education is key to achieving this goal and over the years, the Jesuits have set up 48 primary schools, Canisius College Secondary School and the Charles Lwanga Teacher Training College.

Today, the main problems faced by the rural communities are associated with their isolation. The parish also has many AIDS patients and so they have set up the “Home Base Care” Project. This project helps dying AIDS patients return to their families to receive their last days’ care in the loving environment of their homes. It also helps to free up scarce hospital beds and break taboos surrounding people with AIDS.

In addition to these and other projects, Chikuni has its own radio station run by the Tonga people for the Tonga people. The station with its broadcast radius of 75 km and 100 000 listeners, is truly a community service. It also transmits educational programmes which provide some means of education for children who live too far away to attend a school.

The Companions’ Programme: Mwabuka

Following Alan Fernandes’ introductory talk at Mount St. Mary’s fundraising began in earnest and the headmaster, in his end of year address, commented, “The College held its second Jesuit Week in late October and the focus of that week was the launch of the MWABUKA project to provide understanding of and aid for some of the problems faced by a Jesuit parish called Chikuni in Zambia. I have been very impressed with the way pupils have taken up this project, organising activities and fundraising. At the moment the fund stands at several thousand pounds and we hope that we can meet all or most of the costs of purchasing a four wheel drive vehicle for the parish.”

Listed below are some of the Mwabuka activities that took place:

Spring Term 2005 Sponsored School Walk raised £4000
Summer Term 2005 Cross-curricular day on Zambia
Talent show raised £400
May Casuals Day raised £317
“Make Poverty History” campaign

The school raised a tremendous £17 000 which significantly contributed towards purchasing a heavy duty 4x4 vehicle to traverse the bush roads in the more remote parts of Zambia. This vehicle is used for Home Based Care: to take medication and much needed supplements to people suffering with HIV/AIDS; people who, without this facility, would not have access to medical care.

At the end of June 2005, the school Chaplain, Father Willcocks, and two poetry pupils, Andrew Davies and Jacob Rogers, visited Chikuni for a week. Below are some of their thoughts and observations:

THE ROADS

“We could instantly tell when we had arrived in the parish as the nice, smooth tarmac road suddenly dissolved into a dirt track, filled with potholes about three feet deep. It was, as we later discovered, the only type of road within the parish.” (Andrew Davies)

“The entire journey was uncomfortable and bumpy with us only driving on dirt tracks with ruts everywhere. This gave us a very quick realisation of just how necessary the new 4x4 is for Chikuni if only for the safety of the people who have to travel in it.” (Jacob Rogers)

HOME BASED CARE

On our first day we had to get up at around 06:30, which after a full day’s travel the day before was not particularly welcome. We accompanied the Home Based Care (HBC), which was designed to get aid to the distant villages. Had we known what we would have to endure, I’m sure we wouldn’t have gone because when we arrived, we found a rather dishevelled truck almost bursting at the seams with grain, food supplements, medicine and HIV testing kits. Little did we know that Jacob and I were going to be packed in there with them along with one of the care workers, on a two hour journey, in this ‘truck’, in which the door had to be tied shut with a long piece of string, which incidentally suffered greatly after we had completed the four hour round-trip along the potholed roads

All this though certainly paid off as we were taken to a village to see how the HBC team tested people for AIDS and how they gave counselling to those who were HIV positive. Meeting the villages was one of the most humbling experiences of my life, and I can only consider myself honoured as having been able to meet these wonderful people. They had nothing at all and some had walked for hours, bare-foot, just to be able to receive counselling and a little food. I don’t think that I have ever been as quiet in my life as during this visit, as I had nothing to say…For me, it was amazing to see such happy people in such desperate conditions and yet during our time in Zambia we never heard anyone complain. (Andrew Davies)

MAKE POVERTY HISTORY

The next day’s activities coincided with the Make Poverty History programmes and so around a hundred school children were selected to come and listen to presentations and to learn about what the western world was doing to make poverty history. (Andrew Davies)

All these events really helped us to understand how in touch with their country’s problems these children are and also how mature they are about everything. They knew what should be done by themselves, as Zambians, and also by the leaders of the western, more developed, countries particularly those in the G8. Many of the students were able to talk clearly about their personal thoughts on what needed change and these varied from sustainable living to family planning. It gave us lots to think about and showed us just how much we take for granted. (Jacob Rogers)