Bouwstenen voor Zambia

Slither­ing snakes in high grasses, dan­ger­ous cro­codiles in the ponds, or big hip­pos in the rivers. These wild an­im­als are not un­com­mon in Zam­bia but are rather avoided by the people. At night it be­comes hard to see these an­im­als, and even harder for young chil­dren or people who suf­fer from poor sight. Found­a­tion Bricks for Zam­bia has dis­trib­uted 24 WakaWa­kas to the Linda Blind Farm in Liv­ing­stone, to bring light and the feel­ing of safety to this com­munity.

Linda Blind Farm
Linda Blind Farm is a spe­cial com­munity. Formerly owned by an Eng­lish farm­er, the farm, that con­sisted of 20 small houses, was home to many em­ploy­ees. In the sev­en­ties, the farm­er re­tired and de­cided to donate his farm to the loc­al gov­ern­ment of Liv­ing­stone, but un­der one con­di­tion. The farm was meant to shel­ter the dis­abled and home­less people, so they did no longer have to live and beg on the streets of Liv­ing­stone. Now, many fam­il­ies live in the Linda Blind Farm, be­ing part of a close-knit com­munity.

Found­a­tion Bricks for Zam­bia
Most fam­il­ies, however, lack the means to send their chil­dren to a pub­lic school and do not have re­li­able ac­cess to elec­tri­city, if they are at all con­nec­ted to the grid. Xavi­er Friesen, only 11 years old when he foun­ded Bricks for Zam­bia, is de­term­ined to help chil­dren who are not offered the same op­por­tun­it­ies. When he traveled to Zam­bia and saw the con­di­tions of the Linda Blind Farm, he de­cided to im­prove and em­power the com­munity. He raised funds to build a school and made sure the chil­dren re­ceived good edu­ca­tion. Non­ethe­less, the lack of re­li­able ac­cess to elec­tri­city was still present and made life after sun­set dark and dan­ger­ous.

WakaWaka Lights For Safety In The Dark
Sup­por­ted by WakaWaka, Xavi­er Friesen was able to donate 24 WakaWaka Lights to the fam­il­ies of the Linda Blind Farm. The news that the WakaWa­kas were dis­trib­uted spread like wild­fire in the com­munity. The fam­il­ies were very happy to re­ceive the lights and were sur­prised and curi­ous to learn about the be­ne­fits of sol­ar en­ergy. Since most people ex­per­i­enced daily power cuts or could not even af­ford elec­tri­city, the dis­tri­bu­tion of the WakaWa­kas made a true im­pact. The school uses the WakaWa­kas for com­munity activ­it­ies at night, and the chil­dren use the WakaWa­kas to do their home­work. But the most im­port­ant as­pect for the com­munity is their in­creased feel­ing of safety that al­lows them to go out­side at night with their WakaWa­kas. People feel more com­fort­able to leave their houses at night as the WakaWaka pro­tects them from an­im­als. And by us­ing the SOS func­tion on the WakaWa­kas all fam­il­ies can be warned when an­oth­er slither­ing snake, dan­ger­ous cro­codile, or big hippo is spot­ted.

“Daily life does no longer have to end when the sun sets.”
– in­hab­it­ant of the Linda Blind Farm

“The people were so happy to re­ceive the WakaWa­kas. They were also very sur­prised that it is pos­sible to have light without ex­pens­ive and dan­ger­ous bat­ter­ies and without be­ing con­nec­ted to the elec­tri­city grid”
– Xavi­er Friesen – Founder of Found­a­tion Bricks for Zam­bia

ht­tps://waka-waka.com/blog/found­a­tion-bricks-zam­bia/