This year marks BFZ’s ten-year anniversary. Over the past decade, and thanks to the generosity of supporters, our sponsorship programme has supported hundreds of children to achieve an education that would otherwise have been out of reach. Many more children and young people have benefited from weekly wellbeing sessions and one-off workshops addressing areas of pressing need in Zambia such as child marriage and teenage pregnancy. Our first BFZ pre-school offers vital nurture and stimulation to 80 vulnerable children each day.
We are proud to still be volunteer-led and run. Over the years we have partnered with the same collective of orphan care givers, who work together to improve their own lives and prospects and those of the children in their care. This approach has allowed us to develop d deep relationships with our partners in Zambia and ensures we can live true to our founding principle to always be led and driven by the needs of the communities we support.
As a small charity we can also respond quickly to urgent situations such as Covid 19 or harvest failures and target our support directly to affected households. It also allows us the privilege of watching the children we support grow-up and celebrating their individual successes.
As we reflect and celebrate the successes of the past ten years, we prepare to work harder than ever to face the new challenges brought about by the economic downturn in Zambia and the pandemic. We are deeply grateful for the support BFZ has received from regular donors and followers over the years, but we are asking for help once more as we launch our 10 year-anniversary fundraising challenge.
10 Years, 10 Weeks, 10K!
From 12th September to 20th November (World Children’s Day) 15 of us are walking, cycling, running and/or kayaking 10km a week. We will do this over 10 weeks to make up the combined length of Zambia, a total of 1500km! Each week we will post an update here on our blog and on social media with an inspiring story from our decade of work and an update on our (virtual) progress through the beautiful Zambian landscape.
We would love it if you could support our campaign by following our stories, liking or sharing our posts and, if you are able to, making a donation. We have an ambitious target of £10,000. This will enable us to further expand our sponsorship programme, set up a new college and university scholarship for our alumni and expand our wellbeing and sexual health programmes.
Thank you for reading our blog and being part of our Brighter Futures Zambia community.
Katie and all at BFZ trustees.
