Zambian Volunteers Save Lives

In Zambia, volunteers spend several days each month teaching their neighbors how to improve their farms and grow more crops.  

“Our goal is food security for Zambian farmers . . . to use volunteers to do the training,” said Justin Kadyeni of the Reformed Church of Zambia, which provides leadership for the program as a partner of the Christian Reformed World Relief Committee.  

Kadyeni and his four colleagues work with approximately 70 volunteers, training them to use compost and green manures, to plant new crop varieties, and to improve spacing of crops and irrigation. The volunteers then return to their home areas to teach the techniques to others. The program will reach 384 communities and nearly 10,500 people this year.  

Chosen by their community’s leadership, volunteers must be Christian, literate so they can train others, and willing to sign a contract to work with the program as volunteers for three years. Many stay longer. In exchange they receive training and mentorship from the RCZ, a bicycle for traveling to local communities, and notebooks and other resource material.