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The Villages of Hope are designed upon the African village concept, the keystone of traditional African culture. The Villages are being established on large productive farms. Each will incorporate economical housing for children, large irrigated food gardens, areas for raising livestock, pastures, as well as recreational and school facilities. A village will house 40 to 50 children; eight to ten children will live in a family-style individual home with two house parents. Each village is designed to be self-sufficient. Partners Worldwide is providing successful North American agricultural business people who are working with the Zambia Agricultural Research Center - the Golden Valley Agricultural Research Trust (GART) and the Zambian National Farmers’ Union to develop the agricultural development plan for each site. Together they will determine the livestock needed, the acreage under cultivation, the irrigation plan, and the crops needed to enable each village to be self-sustaining. The children will be raised in this farm environment. The AKCLI-related children's village in Namibia has found a daily farm schedule to be extremely healing for the children who have experienced so many traumas in their young lives: many were the caregivers for their dying parents, some were actually child slaves, many struggled to survive on their own in the African bush. In Namibia, at 6:15 a.m. the children go to the barn, milk the goats, groom the goats, groom the horses, feed the chickens, collect the eggs, and weed the gardens. They go in for breakfast at 7:00 a.m., and their school day begins. The children have found tremendous security in having a daily, regular, productive routine.
Four villages will make up a cluster containing 160 to 200 orphans. A missionary couple will lead each cluster. Critical support needs of health, education, vocational training, and spiritual development will be provided as central, common resources. Each cluster will consist of approximately twenty acres. Each cluster will have a large building for common use, a large irrigated garden of several acres, area for raising livestock, pastures, and athletic play space. This model is designed to be replicated throughout sub-Saharan Africa, in order to save and to rescue tens of thousands of children to be creative Christian citizens of their own countries.
Some of the villages will be built on larger plots of agricultural land. This will allow for the training of youth in good agricultural practices such as; principles of irrigation, crop rotation, vegetable production, compost making, post harvest processing, integrated pest management, crop selection and marketing, and record keeping. The crops harvested will be used to make the villages self sustaining and to help support other orphans who are not residing in the villages.
Of primary importance is the goal to help the orphans grow into creative and fulfilled Christian citizens who will return to their villages as strong ambassadors for Jesus Christ. This will be accomplished by instilling in them a strong Biblical foundation and Bible based Christian morals. In addition to a Christian based education, they will receive Bible teaching and modeling of a Christian life style. The Biblical education will be accomplished by the leadership of the village, the Christian volunteers and employees at the village from the local churches in Zambia, and through short-term volunteers visiting the village from their sponsor churches. The modeling of a Christian life style will come through these same sources.
In time, the village will grow most of its own food. This will include grains, corn, soy, winter peas, and other produce. Meat will come from animals raised on the farm. These will include goats, cattle, sheep, and rabbits. Milk for the children will come from the goats and cows. The project will work closely with local tribal and governmental authorities. Children will be screened and referred by tribal or governmental social services sources.
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