A trip of a lifetime to Zambia

Alex Scott, Sixth Form
October 15, 2015

SOS Children’s Villages donors, Alex and his family, travelled to Zambia for a special purpose: to meet their sponsored child Matthew, 2. This blog first appeared on the SOS Children’s Villages website – many thanks to Alex and the charity for allowing us to reproduce it here.

I’m Alex, I’m 17 years old and a pupil at The Perse School in Cambridge. Together with my mum and my sister who is 20, we visited Zambia this summer.  We wanted to visit our sponsored child, Matthew, who was born in Autumn 2013, as well as experience the SOS Children’s Village in Chipata.

From the moment we arrived at the Village, it was clear to see the love and devotion that the SOS mothers give to every single child. During our two day visit, we experienced a welcoming, thriving village and some very happy faces. We arrived on the first day of school holidays, giving us plenty of time to see the children and play with them.

The friendliness of all the staff and their eagerness to share their surroundings with us was wonderful. The children were very well cared for, great fun to interact with, and very inquisitive. They especially loved taking pictures of each other with our camera and telling us what they wanted to be when they were older (career ambitions include teachers, nurses, doctors and pilots). As well as seeing the various facilities and several homes, we spent time in the community area where the children sang circle songs, danced, played games, and enjoyed drawing.

The house mothers work very hard; to see this first hand is very humbling. Each mother cares for ten children of varying ages (babies to teenagers) and manages a household budget to ensure each child is clothed and well fed. Mothers get  up at 5:00 am each morning to light the braziers if there are power cuts (which seem to happen very regularly) and to do the washing. The mothers take enormous pride in their houses which are really well kept and equipped with a kitchen, a bathroom and four bedrooms. The children are very proud of their clothes and fold them neatly in their rooms.

We took two suitcases with us containing various toys, games, stationery items and clothes for the SOS Village, purchased with travel grants generously provided by my school. The children were thrilled to play with balls and frisbees, which was a pleasure to see, as these simple toys are taken for granted in the UK.

The infinite love that the children in Chipata receive from their SOS mothers is wonderful to see and it is obvious to us that SOS is ensuring a bright future for these children.

SOS Children’s Villages provide up to 130 orphaned and abandoned children with loving homes in Chipata, Zambia.