The Butterfly Tree has seventeen projects underway in the Kasungula District of Southern Province. Our first projects were to offer support to the orphans and improve the health centre in Mukuni Village. Due to the success of our fundraising we have been able to extend this support to various sectors of the rural community and include valuable water projects. We are now helping several villages in the Mukuni Chiefdom and nineteen rural health centres in the district besides assisting with emergency relief aid for the national disaster caused by recent flooding in the Southern Province.
We are providing TME’s educational DVDS to schools throughout the nation and aim to spread our work to other districts.
- Orphan sponsorship program
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There are 710,000 orphans in Zambia and over 500 in the three schools supported by The Butterfly Tree. 90 orphans are currently being sponsored, the program is overseen by female volunteer in each village. Each orphan is selected by a committee, who carefully choose the most ‘critical’ cases, many having dropped out of school. Click here to find out more |
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Children from remote villages walk over 5 miles each way to school, departing at 5am and returning home at 7pm, on only one meal a day. Cunninghams sponsor a feeding program at Mukuni, providing a daily nutritional meal. The charity sponsors a feeding program for undernourished children and to replace breastfeeding in mothers who are HIV positive. |
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The Butterfly Tree helped by a grant from the Kitchen Table Charitable Trust has now raised funds to build a complete maternity block with a ‘shelter’ for women to stay at prior to labour. All woman who are pregnant will be tested for HIV and will recieve education on how to prevent mother to child transmission of this devastating virus. |
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The Mukuni Basic School has become the first rural high school in the district. Principal Mr Presley Mulenga was struggling to make progress due to the lack of government funds. Since The Butterfly Tree’s involvement the school has advanced tremendously, find out more about the school and the work that has been going on visit our Mukuni School page. |
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Due to lack of funds the pre-school was at risk of closure. The Butterfly Tree has built a new, fully equipped classroom with outdoor play area and also funds two pre-school teachers’ and a helper’s salaries. Pre-schools do not receive government backing. Now there are now 170 children attending three classes throughout the day. |
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Ngandu school is the second school supported by The Butterfly Tree. We have fully restored the classroom and added a new roof. Several pupils from the school are included in our orphan sponsorship program and we are currently building a teacher’s house. Many children from the school attend the Mukuni high school. |
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Kamwi, a remote school in the Mukuni Chiefdom, goes up to grade 5. The school needs to be upgraded as the children have to walk great distances to get to Mukuni basic school, crossing elephant paths on the way. The younger children are frightened and run to school becoming too tired to do their lessons. The Butterfly Tree is funding a three-bay classroom. |
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For six months Mukuni Village had only thirty minutes supply of water a day. With Saga Charitable Trust’s help, The Butterfly Tree has rectified this problem. Nine new water tanks have replaced the leaking ones. The Village of Sizabole will no longer have to draw they water from the river; The Butterfly Tree received a grant from Just a Drop to build a bore hole. |
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The Butterfly Tree is funding a project for widows to have a sustainable income. By providing the materials the woman can make the school uniforms, clothing, basket ware and jewellery to sell in the curios centre. Many women are left with several children to support and have no way of earning a living. Mostly men do the wood carvings to sell to the tourists. |
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The Butterfly Tree has four projects underway to help the HIV/AIDS pandemic. We are funding voluntary testing programs; sponsoring HIV/AIDS orphans, a feeding program to help prevent mother to child transmission and working with TME who provide educational DVDs. The Butterfly Tree is translating the DVDs into the four local languages besides using English. |
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The Butterfly Tree sanitation project has provided seventeen pit-latrine toilets for Mukuni Village. Thirteen are for the schools and teachers and four for the community. Lack of sanitation is these rural communities causes a number of health problems. We are also working with TME to provide educational DVDs on Health and Hygiene. |