Zed Bionic of Northrise University scoops a venture competition and walks away with 100 million Zambian Kwacha ($20 grand)! 4th year business students Lyle Doogan, Ignitius Chella, Choongo Hamoonga, Chisanga Bwalya and Phenias Shamuzumba are the champions. Today Northrise Media Collection had the privilege of taking their pictures.
Inter-Market Bank held the VENTURECOMP 2010 K100 Million Business Plan competition. Teams from institutes all over Zambia were challenged to produce a viable business plan that would contribute to the nation’s economy. Zed Bionic’s goal was to find a way to help sustain the agriculture indusry and promote eco-friendliness. So, they came up with a way to manufacture organic fertilizer from treated human waste. Their target market would be the local and small scale farmers, especially those that grow vegetables and bananas.
Four of 84 Executive Summaries were selected to move on to the final round. The teams were each given 5 Million Zambian Kwacha and asked to make an investment over a ten day period. Each team was awarded points according to the returns on investment.
On July 16th the winner was named in Lusaka! Congratulations to the gang!
-Sabra and Chibozu Maambo
Update: Houston, we have a problem!
Fantastic shoot with Northrise students! Tony and Justin took great portraits of the kids outside the school and DannyO made things happen on the fourth floor – a classroom turned out to be a great spot for the video portion of the project. We are all loving that new Canon T2i – wow, what a difference it will make in the quality of our video presentations. The students here are really amazing. They spoke with passion, and Kanayanta – a 23 year old third year student and definitely a group favorite – was there to push the personality envelope. Paige had a breakthrough moment when she figured out how to speak into the walkie talkie, and was the best light bouncer ever. There were a lot of thumbs up and fun as we plowed through the work this morning. The only negative to the day – being forced to say goodbye to Adam Sallee. Home came a callin’ and he is on his way home to Texas and Lindsy. Three weeks in Zambia and it must feel nice to be homeward bound. We are thankful for the overlap in our trips, but the team certainly feels instantly incomplete. We miss you Adam and are grateful for the time together. Clearly, you are helping great things happen at Northrise. Thank you for your leadership here, please know that you are missed and loved.
Now – DannyO is excited to start weaving the video together. We’ve got plenty of Pringles, Diet Coke and cookies to get us through a night of editing pictures and video. Can’t wait to see how it all looks.
-Sabra
Danny and Adam are about to transform a classroom here at Caravelle House into a funky backdrop for a student sponsorship video. 6-10 students are ready to read the script and give the media team what we need to make what (we hope) will be a top notch spot to share with donors, and encourage more people to give. We attempted this a couple of days ago, but the kids were a little nervous in front of the camera. So….take two! Hopefully – separating the kids and a little coaching will help this morning be a success.
-Sabra
A trip to the only children’s hospital in Zambia, Arthur Davison Children’s Hospital (ADH) in Ndola, was a sobering start to the day. The executive director, Dr. Sam Phiri, granted us a few rare minutes to explain the intense need for support on many fronts: medical equipment, better training for staff, relief staff, education, etc. He outlined the ten most prominent diseases/conditions affecting the kids accepted by the hospital – malnutrition, meningitis, malaria and HIV among them. Dr. Phiri opened the boxes of donated surgical kits we brought to the hospital and in an interview for our short documentary, opened his heart about the strangers a world away who make sick children a priority. He was kind and quick to the point. We were very thankful he allowed us access to the hallways lined with rooms full of sick little ones whose troubled parents seemed to ache for their stories to be told. We were welcomed in small spaces where small groups of women sat together. They stared into our cameras as they held their sick, sometimes dying sons and daughters, a tender situation to be sure. I’m not sure you ever forget something like this.
The goal today was to document the vulnerability here and present what Northrise hopes to contribute to future healthcare needs of Ndola. Northrise serves ADH as a mission and provides supplies as often as possible. Now, university land is set aside and hope planted for a student healthcare clinic to be up and running by summer 2011. The facility will serve students, staff and the immediate families of those employees – roughly 1200 people. The project is still in the fundraising phase, another 80 thousand dollars is needed to break ground on the building. University founder Moffat Zimba told Dr. Phiri about his ambition and the two spoke about some technicalities of the idea, and agreed that educationis critical.
In our few hours at ADH it became clear just how critical.
A white building adjacent to the main children’s hospital was packed with people. Children were weighed. They sat on long benches and waited their turn. Outside, a young girl called Precious held a baby she said was her sick sister. Inside, a nurse appropriately named Mercy, told us what it was like dealing everyday with kids suffering from Aids. She explained that around her young patients she tries to pretend like everything is okay because there’s no way out for this population. Nothing else to do. These children are the victims of a savage misunderstanding here about the disease – where it comes from and what stops it. Mercy is about to graduate and become an HIV Nurse Practitioner. She reminded us these toddlers will be plagued their entire lives and paused in recognition that that time might not be too long. She told us that she works and loves through the day. In a thin, cramped hallway she said that sadness hits her when she goes home each night, and tries to prepare for more of the same tomorrow.
We headed out this afternoon to spend some time on the Northrise land. It has been remarkable to watch the development of the land over the last few years and we had an opportunity to catch up with Northrise staff on the property.
Continued growth and expanding knowledge were the key phrases of the interviews with Laston, Bob and Gilbert today on the farm. The past years have seen huge developments and learning opportunities for Norhtrise University’s farm. Two years ago Northrise began growing their own bananas on 4 acres of land and the University immediately saw that there was a strong desire for Northrise bananas at the local markets. Due to the success of the bananas, the following year they decided to start raising chickens as well.
Today we watched as four acres of banana trees were harvested and saw where another four will be planted, hopefully in January. A third brood of chickens were just slaughtered to be sold, and to feed Northrise students. Plans are in motion to build another two coupes. These current and future plans are all a part of Northrise working towards farm sustainability, as Northrise works to be a self-sustaining University. The farm is already helping provide financial support for the school as well as food for the students.
After a harvesting demonstration in the banana fields, we had an opportunity to get the tour of the new business building on the Northrise campus. The building is a testament to the future of Northrise University as an elite University in Zambia. It is not only functional but immaculately clean and beautiful providing an exciting future for Northrise students. As furniture is en route to Northrise now, classes will begin in the new building in January and Northrise looks forward to completing other structures on the campus to add to the business center.
The school of agriculture already has a strong foundation in the Northrise farm. Continued growth and expanding knowledge were the key phrases of the interviews with Laston, Bob and Gilbert today on the farm. The past years have seen huge developments and learning opportunities for Northrise University‘s farm. Two years ago Northrise began growing their own bananas on 4 acres of land and the University immediately saw that there was a strong desire for Northrise bananas at the local markets. Due to the success of the bananas, the following year they decided to start raising chickens as well.
Today we watched as four acres of banana trees were harvested and saw where another four will be planted, hopefully in January. A third brood of chickens were just slaughtered to be sold, and to feed Northrise students. Plans are in motion to build another two coupes. These current and future plans are all a part of Northrise working towards farm sustainability, as Northrise works to be a self-sustaining University. The farm is already helping provide financial support for the school as well as food for the students.
Tired and content, we have returned to the Caravelle House to recap our first full day in Ndola, Zambia. We started off our morning with a visit to Mapalo Glory Academy, a school started by Northrise University 2007 graduate Emil Mukaka.
Emil welcomed us with open arms to his school and we had the opportunity to observe the students in their classes and at their lunch hour. Dave, Tony, and Justin spent the morning behind their lenses capturing the elementary students as they interacted with their teachers and studied. Danny and Adam were able to take the time while the students were in class to interview the administrator Robison and Emil, who reflected on how well Northrise has prepared him for his ministry with his students.
After spending an hour in the classrooms, we had the opportunity to head over to their kitchen and observe the cooking process as the cooks prepared lunch for all the students. The school, with the help of Northrise, has the capacity to prepare one meal a day for the students. For many of the students this is the only meal they will eat a day and the kids began flowing out of the classrooms anxious for their lunch.
We spent the rest of the morning watching and photographing the kids eating and playing games outside in the yard. As we headed out we waved to the school-yard of kids and looked forward to our lunch break at Caravelle house.
After pizza, the long-awaited arrival of Sabra Gertsch and a chance to discuss the afternoon as a group, Danny and Adam headed downstairs to begin shooting the “Support Northrise” advertisement with the students. As the videographers worked at Caravelle house, the photographers took a walk around the streets of Ndola taking test photos and enjoying the people and culture of Ndola.
The videographers had one last shoot with Chilao Mutesa, the academic dean of Northrise, and then we all met up and got ready for dinner with Laston, at Quick Save, yet again. -paige
We just finished dinner at QuickSave and have returned to the Caravelle House. Despite arriving by plane to Ndola today, we headed off this afternoon to start our documenting. For our first excursion we went to Arising Life Ministry in Mushili, Ndola. Arising Life was started by Joyce Chimbila, a 2007 Northrise graduate. Joyce and her school of orphans welcomed us with songs and smiles and we took advantage of the opportunity to witness them in their element. Despite coming from abusive home-lives, the orphans seemed safe and at home at Arising Life.
After spending time in the school, we interviewed Joyce and took some photos of her and the kids. We had an opportunity to see the school which consisted of two classrooms and a small yard for playing. The school has seen growth and positive improvements as Seeds of Life put a pump in the yard to pump fresh water for the kids. As the school looks forward to other improvements, like having electricity soon, the orphans will continue looking forward to their chance to just be kids and have adults who support and love them at Arising Life. We were so pleased that we could be a part in documenting this ministry today. -paige
photos by: dave cheatham, tony elliott, justin clark :: videos by: danny ortega, adam sallee, paige fullmer
(videos to come in future blog post)
