Simwatachela Community - located approximately eighty kilometers from Kalomo, Southern Province, Zambia, is a hard-working, industrious community. The Project Director, Heather Cu***ng, lived within this community for two years, speaking the local language which is CiTonga. In April 2008, the community headmen granted her 140 hectares of land specifically for the purpose of starting a sustainable
agricultural program. Zambia is one of the world's poorest countries and ranked 165th out of 177 on the Human Development Index in 2009. Food production levels vary significantly from year to year. Food security is fragile because subsistence farmers depend on rainfall and traditional hoe cultivation. Even in years of national food surplus, many subsistence farmers or households struggle. The HIV/AIDS epidemic has exacerbated food insecurity levels, contributing to a decline in socioeconomic activity. HIV/AIDS is also both a cause and a consequence of household food security in Zambia. Around 17% of adults aged 15-49 years are HIV-positive and life expectancy is only thirty-seven years. HIV/AIDS undermines the capacity of people in most rural areas to produce enough food for their families. Malnutrition is present to varying degrees in most communities nationwide. Recently, another community arose in the Simwatachela area, anxious to use the same development model. This community is located about ten kilometers from a small town called Zimba, which is sandwiched between Kalomo and Livingstone, the tourist capital of Zambia. The same project model, which thus far has been helping to serve many in the Southern Province of Zambia, if proven to be successful, will be implemented in Sierra Leone, West Africa. Although Sierra Leone has plentiful natural resources, the decade-long civil war severely devastated the country's economy, destroyed infrastructure and caused large-scale human suffering. In 2008, Sierra Leone ranked 84 out of 88 countries in the Global Hunger Index (UN) and last out of 179 countries in the Human Development Index. In 2007, Sierra Leone was rated the most unlivable country in the world. Some forty percent of all children in Sierra Leone below age five are chronically undernourished which places them at high risk to be able to meet their full physical and mental potential. Acute child malnutrition is at an alarming ten percent. Every fourth child dies before reashcing the age of five. Poverty remains pervasive with more than two-thirds of the population of about six million living below the poverty line. Without funding, unemployment - especially among the youth -, as well as low labor productivity, lack of irrigation, over-harvesting and adequate access to food markets as a result of poor road infrastructure continue to be risks to survival.
~Statistics are courtesy of the UN-WFP, 2007-2009
