2008 International Humanitarian Project of the Year: Vima Lupwa Homes' Water Well

At the end of 2008, Vima Lupwa Homes' founder Malerie Pratt's brother Tyler helped oversee completion of a water well that will provide fresh water for chickens, garden and the children who live in the home under the loving care of co-founder Violet Membe.

Despite many challenges and setbacks, Tyler was able to get the new water system up and running before he returned to the U.S. Following is an excerpt from a journal entry Tyler sent to Malerie before departing.

"I climb our tower to open our supply line and we run along the trenches. No leaks to chicken coop, none to garden, and none to washing station. Violet and the kids watch quietly not seeming to understand what all of the fuss is about until I turn on the first tap and water flows at Vima Lupwa Homes for the first time since its founding, when after plumbing the house and connecting to the municipal water main they discovered no water flowed this far out on the network of clogged and broken water pipes.

"Upon opening the first tap I did not expect the procession which was to follow. The whole household erupted in cries of celebration and jubilance as we ran around our various stations to which before water had been laboriously lifted from a well down the block and hauled here in buckets by the crew of children. Now we have a high flow next to the watering can in the chicken coop, one stationed in the middle of the garden, and one in the shade of the matambula tree next to the washing station. They are so celebrating at their outside taps that they seem to forget we have plumbed it to the house as well. I usher them into the house where water is flowing into the kitchen sink through our first broken tap, a small fix compared to what we’ve been through so far on this project.

"A water fight erupts and a line of anxious kids chug water directly from the tap, splashing it all around on those standing by. We funnel in towards the bathrooms to find the thirsty reservoirs of murky and stinking toilets being filled with water, and a good flow through our showerhead under which they all decide to shower in their clothes, singing, jumping, and chanting all the while “no more dirty, no more dirty...” A dog pile proceeds on top of Violet in the hallway and a troop of dripping wet smiling kids stumble outside to catch the last rays of sunset as it dips below the savanna."

To read the full story, go to LupwaHomes.org.

-hoc

Mother’s Day Cards Support Parentless Children

Share the Love With Mothers In Your Life, While Benefiting Bend-based Vima Lupwa Homes’ Zambian Outreach

(BEND, OR) What better way to show appreciation for the mothers in your life than with a card that helps support desperately poor orphan children? Cards featuring artwork created by Lister, an 8-year-old orphaned Zambian girl supported by Bend-based grassroots nonprofit Vima Lupwa Homes, are available now for $10 at Douglas Fine Jewelry in downtown Bend. For $20, Vima Lupwa will send each card to the moms, daughters, wives, sisters, grandmothers and other special people on your list. All proceeds directly benefit the Vima Lupwa Homes children in Luanshya, Zambia.

“Lister is attending the second grade and is an extremely sweet girl that loves to help with anything,” says Maleria Pratt, Vima Lupwa’s 22-year-old founder. “It took her a long time to warm up to me, but she would try to help me with everything. She is actually not living in our home — she is one of our community outreach children that we help buy school books for. After being orphaned, she was placed with her Aunt Foster, who is a seamstress. We bring all of our clothes to Foster to hem, and she also makes all of our school uniforms.”

Proceeds from card sales go directly toward meeting and sustaining the daily basic needs of Zambian orphan children living in and around the Vima Lupwa Home. Ensuring the children's continued health, providing education and job skills, maintaining their garden and chickens for food as well as for income, providing bicycles for transportation and supporting their new bicycle repair business are all components of Vima Lupwa’s plan to make the home self-sustaining over time.

A Central Oregon Community College student and Bend native, Pratt, founded Vima Lupwa Homes while still a teenager. “Honestly, I never saw myself doing this,” she says. “I never wanted to work with people full-time, but when I met the children and I saw there was a need, I had to. It’s one of those things where there’s not a whole lot of choice.”

Cards are available downtown Bend at Douglas Fine Jewelry Design in St. Clair Place on Minnesota Ave. (920 NW Bond St., Suite 106). Call 541-389-2901 for details, or visit visit www.LupwaHomes.org.

The Vima Lupwa Homes Story on Video

Founded in Bend, Oregon by Malerie Pratt, who was a teenager when this story began, Vima Lupwa Homes opened its first home for desperately poor orphans in Mikomfwa, Township of Luanshya, Zambian in 2006. The small home provides a safe, loving family atmosphere in which the basic needs of up to 14 children are met, including proper nutritious meals, beds, clothing, education, health care and most importantly – love and nurturing by parents Violet Membe and her husband, Mwala.

My friends at Umami Media produced this short documentary: