Tomorrow is my last day in Kitwe, and Friday, Independece Day, is my last in Zambia. I’ve interviewed over 40 people and taken hundreds of photographs and video clips which I’m really excited about sharing with Cecily’s Fund supporters over the coming months. I’m hot and exhausted and missing my daughter, but I’ll be sad to leave. Everywhere I’ve been, whether to class rooms, staff rooms, teacher training colleges or people’s homes (however humble), I’ve been welcomed with the same gentle, respectful warmth. No Zambian conversation can begin without an unhurried greeting and enquiry after each others’ health, properly answered and with a decent pause before the business begins.

Etiquette is always properly observed. Each school visit begins with a formal visit to the Head Teacher’s office where introductions are made, welcomes extended, mutual gratitude expressed. The Zambian handshake is a three-part manoevre, handshake-fistgrip-handshake. Children – boys and girls - greet their elders with a curtsey and their left hand over their hearts. Older people greet you with a serries of claps and murmured traditional welcomes which, sadly, I'm told are impossible to translate.

Some of Zambia’s traditions, however, are not so benign. Today we observed a peer education session led by Patricia, whose home I visited yesterday. She and her peer education partner, Melvin, urged the grade 9 children to question and challenge those traditional and cultural practices that increase the risk of spreading HIV; practices like the reluctance of parents to talk to their children about sexual issues, sexual “cleansing”, or circumcision using a single blade for multiple initiates. In a culture which reveres age and tradition, it takes courage for young people to speak out against them.

The pupils in the class were equally courageous in asking delicate questions; “Why do they say a woman has to be shy and quiet in front of a man? How can she deal with problems if she has to be quiet?”, “If you marry a man and he dies, and you are supposed to marry his younger brother, does that clear you of HIV?”, “Does circumsicion prevent you from getting HIV?” (the answer is No). Neither were they afraid to raise their hands to say whether or not they had had an HIV test or to perform dramas in front of their whole class about the highly sensitive issues that surround HIV, sex, infidelity, death... But then, from an early age Zambian children are never far from HIV messages; they are painted on walls, introduced in classrooms before each lesson, discussed at anti-AIDS clubs after school and in these peer education sessions.

There is a loud and heated debate going on around me in the internet café about the pros and cons of presidents past, present and potential. Truckloads of campaigners drive up and down with horns blaring. Whoever is voted in next Thursday will inherit a generation armed with impressive knowledge and understanding of how HIV is spread, with a growing awareness of their rights as children and their rights and duties as men and women. I hope they will be able to create an environment in which such brave, committed, knowledgeable children can thrive, in which benign traditions survive and not so benign ones are adapted to be safe.

In the meantime Cecily’s Fund, through our partners Bwafwano, Hodi and CHEP, is helping at least a sizeable portion of them to go to school, to learn and teach about HIV and to train to become teachers. From what I’ve seen and heard, it’s a good start. A very good start. Each child that has been through Cecily’s Fund support emerges not only more educated and aware, but more sensitive to the needs of the orphans and vulnerable children coming up behind them and more committed to doing what they can to help.

When I return to Zambia next year I will seek out the same children and young people as I’ve met this year and see how their lives have developed. As years go by we will hopefully build up a bigger picture of the long term impact that your support has on the lives of these children. From what I’ve seen and heard, the education alone gives them a head start in life and in avoiding the risks of HIV.
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