A Long-Awaited Visitor ;)

2016-10-302018-01-02 Planting A Future Zambiaafrica, african clothes, african community, african kids, african school, african tradition, african village, african women, berlin, breadfruit, breadfruit institute, breadfruit trees, building, challenges, charity, charity project, chinkonono, chinkonono village, community, create jobs, difficulty, diy, do it yourself, donation, donations, donors, dream, dreams, education, empowerment, fruit trees, germany, hard work, help, help africa, julie, kalomo, moringa, ngo, non-profit, paint job, painting, planting a future, roof, seedlings, traditional, village, water, zambiaLeave a comment

Finally! Julie made it back to Zambia after 2 years. And guess where she went: Chinkonono Village of course!

Check our awesome new Slideshow to see what happened in the village and what progress we made while Julie was there:

Julie had a big To-Do-List to check 😉 As you know we have been announcing a market place and kitchen for ages. So we planned to get both structures roofed within that week. We managed for the kitchen. So that is good. The market we only could do half because we lacked grass to that the roof the traditional Tonga way. But we are confident that it will be done very soon.

Also our building that houses the library and sewing room for now was supposed to be painted nicely. Unfortunately there was a lot of plastering to do to fix dents and window sills. But Jason and Albert worked hard. So with a slight delay the ladies, Julie, Wesley and many other hands could start painting.

For the rooms we chose water-based white paint and for the lower part white oil paint so we can wash of prints of dirty kids’ hands 😉 Door and window frames are painted in a dark green. For the front wall and pillars outside we chose white oil paint to be able to wash them too. Also Wesley and Julie practiced their sign writer skills and wrote Planting A Future onto the top part of the front wall.

What can I say? It looks beautiful and bright and people can see it from afar. Our members are so proud, especially the women. They say that nobody has a nicely painted wall our house at home. And to quote Media: “Not all men’s work has to be done by men only. We can do that too!”…she refers to the whole painting job, which was very interesting and exciting for our ladies.

But now lean back and take 12 minutes to watch the Slideshow! Please share if you like it! 🙂

No looking back? Well…we do a bit :)

2016-05-25 Planting A Future Zambiaaccounting, africa, african clothes, african community, african kids, african village, african women, australia, breadfruit, breadfruit institute, bruni, charity, community project, construction site, cultivaris, donations, donors, educational project, germany, global breadfruit, hawaii, help africa, jamaica, library, ngo, non-profit, planting a future, repairer of the breach, sewing room, sponsorship, superfood, support, zambiaLeave a comment

Planting A Future is such an amazing project. And it is growing so fast. So many things we need to do and that we want to do. Sometimes it is hard to focus on our running project so as to finish those before starting the next thing 😉

Our achievements are overwhelming at times. Especially for people in Chinkonono Village and for Lloyd. He sat down and wrote a nice review of the past 6 and a bit months. Please take a few minutes to read what he has to say!

As we enter the second quarter of this year lets take while to look back at awe-inspiring moments and events! 🙂
A lot has happened to PAF, both locally and internationally, and at times these incidents, events and moments have left most of us speechless and in awe. In other words these have jolted us out of the ordinary into the extraordinary and brought us to a better understanding of humanity, without the usual facade of race, religion, culture, ethinicity, tribe and social class. It showed us that humanity is just one big family.
To everyone who has been following the developments at PAF it is evident that like-minded people from all over the world have made so much sacrifice to bring a smile or change the lives of Chinkonono people for the better. All this has been done while the world is groaning under the global financial meltdown, terrorism, refugee crisis and climate changes.
There were many awe-inspiring moments and it is impossible to highlight all of them. Everyone of them made PAF what it is today.

While we were struggling with resources to put basic stuff together, a dying man requested his family not to buy flowers for his wreaths but to give the money to PAF so that we could buy the materials for the greenhouse. We will always remember you. May you rest in peace! Thank you so much to Baumschule Bösl!
Under very difficult financial challenges our friends from Repairer Of The Breach bought the village women sewing machines and fabrics and Bruni donated money to construct the first building of our community center that now houses a sewing room and library.

Grime fixing the air vent…well, he did it wrong so Jason had to pull them out again 😉

Bruni, for the second time, visited Zambia to check on PAF activities, live in the village so as to understand village challenges and learn the lives of the people. It is during this visit when PAF became an NGO with structured activities. More info, the statute and membership forms will be online soon!
Our friend Murray from Australia organised for books for our village kids. This was achieved at great financial cost and sacrifice from a lot of people in Australia.
PAF recieved breadfruit seedlings for the second time. Our partners at the Breadfruit Institute in Hawaii together with Global Breadfruit and Cultivaris donated trees as a christmas gift to the village. This was such a great surprise as we did not expect any seedlings due to the challenges we had faced the first time we were given seedlings.

The ladies help their moms watering the seedlings

The ladies of Repairer Of The Breach also donated money for a christmas feast to the village. This has been unprecedented. Never in the history of the village has everyone come together to celebrate christmas. Only a couple of families used to do it while the rest of the village had no food due to lack of money and food.
We are also setting up our school sponsorship programme to help vulnerable families pay for their kids’ school fees and thus give them a chance to get education. The first kids already found sponsors. Please contact us for further information if you are interested to change a child’s life!

Little James recieving money from his sponsor to go to school

These are some of the events which will remain in the mind of the village and PAF members for a lifetime. These have shown the world that love has no boundaries.
On behalf of PAF I thank everyone who has made PAF what it is today. The story of this success will be incomplete without Patrick Thompson, Jacqueline Mapande, Stan Watt, Murray Quant, Diane, Garry, Amy, Josh, Blair and all the rest of our well wishers… THANK YOU VERY MUCH!

A Visit in Chinkonono Village

2016-05-012018-01-02 Planting A Future Zambiaafrica, african clothes, african community, african kids, african village, african women, berlin, breadfruit, bruni, charity, chinkonono village, community project, community work, create jobs, crops, donations, educational project, fight hunger, germany, help africa, hunger, irrigation, julie, moringa, moringa leaves, moringa powder, moringa products, no water, non-profit, organic, planting a future, poverty, raise money, sewing, sponsor a child, sponsorship, superfood, tailoring, youtube, zambia2 Comments

Whoa…now look at that!!! Somebody made a new photo slideshow of Bruni’s visit and impressions of Chinkonono Village, PAF activities and the warmth and joy of our Zambian community!

Check the slideshow to get a glimpse of what Bruni experienced and of what is going on for Planting A Future with the new breadfruit seedlings, the first building of our new community center, the first moringa harvest, our village primary school and all our lovely PAF members 🙂

It is definitely worth 9 minutes of your time…we will take you on a little break from reality and invite you to join us in the middle of nowhere, far away from all stress and hectic.

Now lean back and enjoy! 🙂

Please share if you like what you see! Spread the word!

The German Zambian Adventure has begun ;)

2016-04-132016-04-13 Planting A Future Zambiaafrica, african clothes, african community, african food, african roads, breadfruit, breadfruit institute, breadfruit trees, bruni, chinkonono, education is the key, end hunger, end starvation, german food, germany, global breadfruit, grime, help africa, kalomo, livingstone, lloyd, planting a future, zambiaLeave a comment

So…I know you guys are all eager to know if all went well with Bruni and the plants. And I can tell you now: It did! 🙂

See for yourself:

Lloyd and Bruni with the breadfruit babies...all well and healthy — Lloyd and Bruni with the breadfruit babies…all well and healthy

Tired and exhausted after more than 19 hours of traveling Bruni got to Livingstone at around noon today. Lloyd had some difficulties finding a car to pick her up at the airport. But as things are in Africa all worked out. Also Grime was there to welcome her because he had some paperwork to do for PAF and did not want to miss the chance be one of the first to see Bruni again 😉

So after the first warm hugs obviously everyone wanted to see how our breadfruit babies were doing. And what can I say? They all looked healthy and green and well.

Having checked on that and a little rest they all went to a big supermarket to buy some food for the time in the village. If you guys knew the road conditions…you would probably buy food for a whole months 😉 But Bruni had a well prepared shopping list because she might or might not plan to show some exquisite German cooking skills 😉

So late afternoon they took the car to make their way to Kalomo first. And…TIA…not even an hour after leaving Livingstone they had a breakdown with the car. Nothing happened and everyone and everything is fine. But it delayed them quite a bit.

Goodbye Deutschland 😉 Last stop on European soil: Frankfurt

Lloyd and Webby, our driver. He is the headteacher of one our target schools

Bruni explaining about the struggles to pretent the bag wasn’t that heavy for airport check-in 😉

Mr Food Expert explains about African grocerie shopping 😉

Bruni and Grime with some emergency food reserves 😉

Adventure indeed. Breakdown not even an hour after leaving Livingstone

But finally they made it all to Kalomo. Bruni, the plants and Grime already left for Chinkonono Village and hit the probably bumpiest “road” (if you dare calling it a road) you can imagine. Lloyd stayed in Kalomo because there still is some money business to deal with so we can buy cement, paint and building materials to finish up our sewing room and library. He will be going to the village as soon as possible when things are sorted out in town.

So for now…we will have to see and wait for any news from Zambia. Nobody knows if and when they will find networt…but latest end of April we will feed you bit by bit with everything that happened 😉 So stay tuned…

The big Journey begins…288 breadfruit trees travel to Zambia :)

2016-04-122016-07-03 Planting A Future Zambiaafrica, african community, african village, breadfruit, breadfruit institute, breadfruit trees, bruni, charity, donors, fight hunger, fight starvation, germany, global breadfruit, hawaii, help africa, help african people, import plants, journey, julie, luggage, non-profit, planting a future, superfood, travel, zambia6 Comments

Whoa…2 intense days lay behind our German ladies Julie and Bruni. It was long prepared and now we made it. Together with our dear friends from the Breadfruit Institute, National Tropical Botanical Garden and Global Breadfuit we organized a second delivery of breadfruit trees from Germany to Zambia.

Final destination...PAF in Zambia :) — Final destination…PAF in Zambia 🙂

Lloyd and our Zambian team did not know about it for quite a while. We decided to make it a xmas surprise for our PAF team. And Global Breadruit and the Breadfuit Institute sponsored us 288 little trees. That is almost double the amount of last time. Super exciting and we are more than humbled and grateful.

After getting all papers and permits done Garry from Global Breadfruit packed our 288 not so little friends and made his way to Berlin to bring the plants to Bruni, who is the one taking the breadfruit trees down to Zambia this time.

He explained a lot about breadfruit and Global Breadfruit. Great to meet the people behind Global Breadfruit. Also we are very happy to see how big and healthy all the plants look. They are beautiful and will be even more once they get planted into Zambian soil. Also this time we have 3 different types of breadfruit because the usually grow in slightly different times of the year. That way we try to guarantee that we will have breadfruit all year round in Zambia soon.

There they are…lots and lots of not so little breadfruit saplings 🙂

After some emotional stress of trying to figure out how to best pack them and how to check in the luggage we finally agreed on the best solution and now the plants are safely packed and ready to fly to Zambia 🙂 I wonder if they are as excited as we all are.

So Tuesday afternoon Bruni and Julie made their way to Tegel Airport in Berlin where Bruni was supposed to start her journey to Livingstone. There Lloyd will pick her up and take her to Chinkonono Village. Our PAF team in Zambia is so excited to see her again already.

Last check on the “babies” before she starts off

Julie and one of the saplings at the airport

You guys all have no idea how much luggage Bruni has and how heavy all that stuff is 😉 And it is not just plants…I am sure there are some more nice surprises in there as well…

But for now…keep your fingers crossed that all goes well and all the plants will get there safely and Bruni has safe flights!

bye bye...see you all in Zambia — bye bye…see you all in Zambia

Check back on us for more updates! We will keep you posted!

Also again…huge thanks to the Breadfruit Institute and Global Breadfruit: Josh, Blair, Amy, Diane, Garry and everyone involved who made this possible! You guys rock and we heart you!

Speeding allowed: Moringa Trees in a rush

2016-04-082016-07-03 Planting A Future Zambiaafrica, african village, african women, breadfruit, charity, community projects, eat healthy, grow fruits, grow veggies, help africa, moringa, moringa leaves, moringa plants, moringa products, non-profit, planting a future, superfood, zambiaLeave a comment

Planting A Future started out with the idea of growing breadfruit trees in Zambia and distribute those to vulnerable people. We are still working on that and will soon have a surprise and big news for you. So stay tuned 😉

But also we decided to grow local plants as well to enrichen people’s diets. As you know Moringa is the new superfood. Everyone is trying to get their hands on some moringa products for all its “super powers”.

Luckily enough moringa is growing in Zambia. And it grows fast and in vast amounts. So Planting A Future has its own moringa plantations by now. 3 months ago we initiated the project “Plant a moringa for food” so that our community can benefit from those trees too. And now look at this lady plucking leaves for dinner from just 2 months-old plants. Crazy! And I have been told (no names mentioned) that moringa makes the best veggies ever.

This lady is picking the first leaves for dinner

As you can see moringa trees grow quick. None of those plants is older than 2 or 3 months. From planting the seeds into soil it takes about 3 to 5 days until they sprout, obviously in warm climate. Zambia is an ideal place to grow them. They are drought resistant and do not need a lot of water.

Just a few months after planting the saplings are that big... — Just a few months after planting the saplings are that big…

Still we are looking for possible markets and companies to market our moringa products. We are planning to produce our own PAF moringa products.

If anyone of you guys knows someone or a company or NGO that would be interested in marketing our products please contact us and we can talk things through. These organice products would help Planting A Future raising some money to pursue our missing to plant more fruit trees, create jobs and literate people in our community. That way we could raise some money on our own to keep our projects running and expand.

So please contact us with any useful information!

Education is the key

2016-03-082016-07-03 Planting A Future Zambiaafrica, african kids, african school, african village, breadfruit, charity, donation, education is the key, help africa, help african kids, non-profit, planting a future, poor, poverty, school fees, school sponsorship, sponsorship, zambiaLeave a comment

Please help us to plant a future and change a kid's life! — Please help us to plant a future and change a kid’s life!

Stories we hate and fear to tell! This boy walked a distance of 11 km just to ask for help from Planting A Future and Lloyd. But he already takes care of other kids’ fees and was not able to help this young man out.

He is 18 years old, but still in grade 8. His father does not care about his schooling. So he has to work in farmers’ maize and cotton fields for his school fees, books and clothes. He is a very good, clever and hardworking boy but fate hasn’t been on his side. He needs k150 (equals about 13,50 USD or 12 Euros) each term for school fees…just that will make a big difference in his life.

For now he has been sent away from school because he was not able to make the payment of fees…but luckily our friends from Repairer Of The Breach jumped in to help this young man. Thanks Carol and Jennifer!

If you guys also want to help kids like him to pay for their school fees, please contact us for information about our sponsorship programme!

Veggie Trial and Error …

2016-03-042016-02-20 Planting A Future Zambiaafrican kids, african village, african women, breadfruit, charity, create jobs, food security, grow veggies, help africa, more fruit and veggies, non-profit, organic food, planting a future, self help, veggies, zambiaLeave a comment

One of our aims was to build up a communal veggie garden where we could raise veggies for sale and consumption and also teach people how to grow certain veggies to educate them and pass on the knowledge.

Unfortunately this project failed as such due to lack of water and the heat spell. We had planted seedlings in our green house and around it. These grew well until the river dried up. It was difficult to get water for the trees since people had to walk kilometres to fetch it. The heat spell destroyed the seedlings remaing.

This doesn’t mean we have given up on the whole veggie thing. Having failed to have the garden, we now shared the seeds amongst our PAF members and each planted in his or her garden.

The seeds we manage to get from those plants we will be used for next planting season. And people will alway bring back a share of the seeds to PAF so that we can keep on providing at least our community with healthy veggies.

Also we plan to exhibit the veggies and seeds alongside our trees and products at the upcoming agriculture shows this year.

We already planted new seeds into the fields at the onset of the rainy season. Look at how nice those veggies grow. Thanks again to our sponsors from Germany and Hawaii for making this possible. 🙂

Superman? No…Moringa!

2016-02-292016-07-03 Planting A Future Zambiaafrica, african kids, african village, african women, breadfruit, create jobs, fight poverty, help africa, help african women, moringa, moringa soap, planting a future, superfood, zambia4 Comments

As you guys all know we are trying to raise more Moringa trees this year. We do have the contract with the Chief to plant 5.000 trees for him to hand out to his people.

That is Mr Nkololola, one of our volunteers. He offered his bike to transport seedlings to villages we cant access on foot.
He is currently distributing Moringa seedlings to vulnerable homes, for example 4 single moms in Nguba Village.
Moringa is rich in nutrients and easy to grow, also it is prolific in our village. Its leaves are in high demand hence our hope is not only to put food on peoples tables, but also to put a bit of cash in their pockets.

But also we know about the “super powers” of this plant. Superfood they call it in Europe and the US. It sure is for so many reasons:

Juice from the leaves is believed to have a stabilizing effect on blood pressure and is used to treat anxiety. It is believed to control glucose levels in cases of diabetes.
Mixed with honey and followed by a drink of coconut milk 2 or 3 times a day, leaves are used as a remedy for diarrhea, dysentery and colitis.
Leaf juice, sometimes with carrot juice added, is used as a diuretic. Eating leaves is recommended in cases of gonorrhea because of the diuretic action.
Leaves and buds are rubbed on the temples for headache.
A poultice is made from fresh leaves and applied to reduce glandular swelling.
Leaf juice is used as a skin antiseptic.
Leaves are used to treat fevers, bronchitis, eye and ear infections, scurvy, and catarrh (inflammation of the mucus membrane).
Leaves are considered to be anthelmintic ( able to kill intestinal worms).
Leaves are used as a purgative.
Eating leaves is believed to increase a woman’s milk production and is sometimes prescribed for anemia.
also its protein is better than soy
its oil is much better than olive oil and used in cooking and cosmetics

Wait, what? In cosmetics? Yes! We found a lady who is an expert in producing Moringa soap. Right now we are trying to look into the production of Moringa soap. This could be another way for us to create jobs and help our members to raise some money for their families.

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Zambian Fashion Week

2016-02-222016-02-16 Planting A Future Zambiaafrica, african clothes, african colours, african dance, african dancers, african village, african women, breadfruit, charity, chinkonono, create jobs, end poverty, help africa, help zambia, non-profit, planting a future, repairer of the breach, sewing machines, tradtional clothes, zambiaLeave a comment

Ladies and Gentlemen….welcome to Zambian Fashion Week! 😀

Our PAF ladies are working hard to learn how to tailor and sew, also to learn about fabrics and threads and cutting…long story short: our girls learn how to make clothes. Fun fact: Lloyd does too 😉

You can imagine that there is a lot of fun involved.

The first shirt our members designed and sewed is Zambian-themed! Turned out quite good, didn’t it? Lloyd already loves it!

Thank you again to our friends from Repairer of the Breach for sponsoring the sewing machines! You guys really help changing lives by creating jobs and a source of income.

Now it is all about finishing the building for our sewing and show room. Work in progress…more updates on that one soon.