The video below gives some of the story of Streetlife. Lillian Mwila shares the history of Streetlife and encourages churches to get on board with supporting the work they are doing in Zambia.
Greetings & love from all the children at Street Life Project here in Zambia. I'm sorry I couldn't travel this time around but I'm so happy that we could be able to send our warm love to you this time.
In 2002 I was walking to a prayer meeting where women were having the meeting and on my way there I met two very hungry children who were lying down by the roadside and at first sight I thought that those children had been hit by a car or something so my heart just went out for them and when I reached the place where they were I shook one them and he began to cry out and he was able to say “oh we've been hungry the last 3 days. We haven't eaten anything and so we really need food.”
So I took those children to the place where we are having the prayer meeting an after the prayer meeting I was able to give them some bread rolls and some juice and they were so happy and they went away.
The following week again as I was going to the prayer meeting they spotted me and they had invited two other children so they were the four of them and we were able to give to the four children and then within one month before we could realise it I was being followed by over 85 children coming to have that bread roll and a small juice.
That is how Streetlife project began.
Two years later after doing all the feeding the government changed the policy and discouraged us from feeding the children directly on the streets and so we had to change the approach from being directly involved with the children on the streets to being able to prevent some of those children becoming street kids. So, after praying about it I really thought the Lord said to me that I needed to continue what I was doing but doing it in the compounds through feeding programs which we have continued up to now.
We feed children in the Shanti compounds where there is more poverty and from such programs we have been able to identify the needy children and those who are very desperate and we bring them into our two homes. The day the Grace Centre where we keep up to 25 boys and the Faith Centre where we've been able to keep 25 girls at any particular time and through the years the Lord has seen us be able to have our children go into baby class right up to college and some of our children have graduated and some are now working.
We thank God that in one of the years our friend called Rob Coleman from Bolton came and he identified the need to be able to sponsor children back into school. In fact at that point the government had also said to me that I couldn't just feed the children. We needed to be doing something more sustainable for them. Something that lasts and also give visible a result. So, we started the project of educational sponsorship with our friends Rob and Helen Coleman at their church by then called Bolton Family Church which is now Grace Church and from the 10 first children that were sponsored now we have been able to have over 250 children sponsored.
However, the challenge is still there and we still need more people to partner with us to be able to sponsor a child back into school at any level either primary, secondary or college.
Yes, so I know somebody could be wondering how they can get involved as well in the journey of changing a lifestyle of a person from being a hopeless child out there to being a graduate who can be able to do something for the society and also give back into the project.
One way could be through educational sponsorship and numbers are popping up and the names of some of the people you could get in touch with and others you can get in involved by just giving a one off offering and others you can also get involved by being able to just come to Zambia and help out with what we are doing.
Currently we would really want some people come in to help with our school being teachers there for a season and other skills that you can bring along with you to come here. So you are free to email me personally or you can email the some of the people who've been involved in the project already.
Like Beth at Grace Church. Esther at ChristCentral Church you can also get in touch with Ben at Crawley and all those details will be can be made available to you.
So you can come along and be part of a life changing story as Streetlife. Our motto is to put a
smile back on a child's face and we are here to rebuild confidence. Thank you so much
Beth Cameron, Grace Church Bolton – beth@gracechurch.org.uk
Nicola Johnston, Crawley Community Church – jonners74@gmail.com
Irene Langabeer, Lifespring, Horsham – irene.langabeer@ntlworld.com
Esther Chandler, ChristCentral Manchester – esther@christcentral.org.uk
Lillian Mwila - lillymwila@gmail.com
Thank you