When workshops change lives

Sometimes it takes a dramatic event to make serious changes in your life and priorities. Sometimes it just takes a workshop.

Zachariah Lungu (left) and Tembo Chola

”I think I was just asked to participate in the workshop to make up the numbers,” 25 year old Tembo Chola admits with a laugh. But today he is very glad that he went to the workshop on life skill training, which MS Partner, Community Youth Concern (CYC), conducted in his village a few years ago. ”I have become a changed person because of it,” he explains. ”Before I just hung out with my friends and played football, told stories and wasted my time. CYC taught me to organize myself and how to participate in our community's development. Now I'm the chairperson of both our youth group and our church group in Sindilani.”

20 year old Zachariah Gift Lungu tells a similar story. He had dropped out of school after the 7^th grade and was barely surviving by doing some piecework here and there. ”I wasn't really achieving anything, just playing some baseball and making very little money carrying bags for people and such,” he tells. But like Tembo, a CYC workshop in Lozani village made him think twice about his life. ”It changed the way I think about myself and how I work and how to achieve things. It made me go back to school and I am now in grade 11.”

Both young men are now part of a group of 14 CYC volunteer civic educators that go around to other villages in Nyimba District to educate other youths on how they can take charge of their own lives. In the workshops youths are taught how to set a goal for themselves, how to make rational decisions and how they can participate and influence the development in their own communities. Each civic educator is responsible for 4 meetings, so altogether 56 meetings have been conducted throughout the district this year.

”We usually begin by contacting the headmen and church leaders to negotiate a time and place for our workshop and ensure their cooperation. Then we go back a second time to prepare for the meeting and pass around agendas before we finally conduct the workshop itself,” explains Tembo. In the workshops the youth get an opportunity to talk about their problems and can receive advice on how to go about solving them, who to contact for help and why they should involve themselves in local planning meetings and get their voices heard.

Generally the reactions to the workshops are very good. ”The youth really appreciate our efforts,” says Zachariah. ”Some even come up to me later and say that after I explained things, they have now joined a neighbourhood planning committee or are participating in local planning meetings.” As a side bonus, lots of new members join CYC as a result of the workshops. But occasionally there are also the odd protests, mainly from elderly people. ”There was an old man who started shouting at me once, saying I should go. He was upset because I was young and still talking with authority,” smiles Tembo. And Zachariah has had a run-in with a member of an Area Development Committee, a woman who tried to take over his meeting and accused him of trying to cheat everybody. ”I asked her if she had any examples of what the Area Development committee had achieved in the community, to warrant that there was no need for youths to involve themselves. She didn't have one, so people laughed at her instead.”

CYC's civil educators as well as all their ordinary members are invited to several training workshops a year to improve their skills in various areas. Workshops are for instance about Gender, Decentralisation, Democracy and Youth Leadership training. Both Zachariah and Tembo have liked the leadership training best so far. ”It has guided me in my behaviour and how I show respect to different types of people,” Tembo says. Nowadays both young men have big plans for the future. Tembo wants to become a mechanical engineer and Zachariah wants to teach people about better agricultural methods. All because they once attended a workshop.