Loughrea woman’s efforts build safe house for Zambian children
Date Published: 12-May-2010
An area of Zambia, which has the highest level of recorded violence against young girls travelling to and from school, can now offer 40 of them a safe house thanks to money raised in Loughrea.
Emma Gilchreest (30), from the Coorheen area of the town, spent a year working voluntarily in the country for FAWEZA (Forum for African Women Educationalists of Zambia).
Before she left, however, she fundraised for a – then undecided – project to help people living in the country. While she was there, though, she found a most worthy one.
“In some areas of Zambia children walk for up to 20km to get to their nearest school,” she said this week.
“Many children arrive tired and exhausted, and this has a negative effect on their concentration, but reports also suggest that girls are increasingly being subjected to violence going to and from school.”
Emma found this to be the case in an area called Nanga, Mazabuka, where the rate of violence against girls is the highest in the country.
“This area is a sugar plantation and the girls walk through the high sugar cane fields every day. As the sugar cane is cut by hand, there are a great number of men from all over Africa who go to Nanga for seasonal work.
“Starting off in the early hours and returning in the dark leaves many young girls from Nanga High School target to rape and attack in the sugar fields.”
The young Loughrea woman discovered that many of the orphan vulnerable girls, whose education was sponsored, were renting shelters or squatting in deplorable conditions just to be near their school grounds, and not to be walking through the plantation.
Having these children living alone and unsupervised has led to a large increase in teenage pregnancies and susceptibility to HIV/AIDS in the area.
“While back in the office in Lusaka, I could never forget these girls putting their lives at risk to go to school and I was determined to help them in any small way I could,” Emma says.
Read how Emma helped to make life better for these children in this week's Connacht Tribune.