Dear friends of Tikondane,
Tiko has power – in every meaning of the word and 24 hours a day. The reason? 36 solar panels have been mounted on the roof of Guernsey Great Hall, thanks to a very generous donation of the Guernsey Overseas Aid Commission, a Government of Guernsey Department, and Guernsey Aid, a charity where Peter Keeling, Tiko´s longtime friend (see Newsletter 04/2024) is the treasurer. They raised a total of 31.000 $ for this project.
For the rest of Katete and Zambia the energy crisis is not over by far. Remember, Zambia relies not on solar but on water power. And those rivers are shallow, after three years of drought. Power has returned to the public grid, but only for an unpredictable four hours at predawn. So the new solar panels have made Tiko truly independent. Imagine your fridge being out nearly 20 hours a day? Forget about storing fresh food. The restaurant at Tiko now has its fridges up and running 24/7. Computer courses could be held day round, doubling or tripling capacity. Reliable and cheap solar or wind power is the backbone of economic recovery not only in Zambia, but everywhere.
RAIN – PLAGUE AND BLESSING
The heavy rain after three years of extreme drought is a ray of hope for Tiko. But because the next harvest isn’t until May, hunger is still rampant. People are stealing the young non-dry maize cobs from the fields to eat them right away. This is causing problems. But who wants to judge people who are simply terribly hungry?
We now have two tanks for collecting rainwater, thanks to a donation from volunteer Logan from Sydney (seen here picking peanuts together with Italian volunteer Giorgia and Tisauke from the crew). Unfortunately, we can’t put the second one into operation yet because we could not weld steel brackets to the walls to hold the gutters in place, as there was no electricity. Our solar supply is not enough for powerful machines, only for lights, office equipment, small kettles and the like.
THE VILLAGES ON THEIR WAY TO SELF-SUFFICIENCY
Great progress has been made in the villages served by Tiko. Most of them added an additional or enhanced source of water, thanks to a generous donation from our new partner organization in France (see Newsletter December 2024). Some had their wells deepened, their boreholes repaired, while others received completely new ones. From the beginning Tiko tried to change mindsets. Vegetables used to be grown by specific gardeners deep in the bush, far away from marauding cows. They were not popular with the village folk. Only maize counted. Since 2005, we have been training health workers in32 of these villages, initially to care for victims of HIV and their families. Starting in 2023, with funding from the fundraising organization Global Giving, we were able to train these health workers in growing their vegetables right on their yard. We had been teaching this method for more than ten years before, but nobody did it, because they feared that the vegetables would all be eaten by chicken and cows.
We imported a new method from Uganda on how to put the vegetables into rings where they were protected from the animals because they could be surrounded by a fence or just covered with a lid. All villages now have vegetable rings for the cultivation of many vegetables. For the first time in 25 years farmers can now grow their balanced diet in an affordable way in their own backyard.
They also learn about small firewood as renewable energy as well as about pigeons and rabbits as a source of protein that does not worsen climate change.
TIKO SURVIVAL PACKAGE SPREADS RAPIDLY
One consequence is what we now call the Tiko Survival Package. Every week for the past seven weeks now a new group has come for a seminar, and we are booked out up to June. Tiko youth groups take it as an added benefit. The Tiko Tigers, our football team, came on Saturday. They had to, sort of, because Tiko sports a new female football team as well, and they led by example. Demand for these seminars is huge.
One school group came from a faraway village, and youths from the Anglican church took an interest as well. Tiko is busy spreading the word and hopes to be able to help communities all over the country.
JUNGLE ADVENTURE FOR A TIKO VETERAN
Our German friend Jens encountered unexpected problems on his 17th visit to Tikondane. On the Great Eastern Road, which connects Katete with the capital Lusaka and the airport, a central bridge had collapsed.
Jens and Tiko’s driver Sam had to take a detour of several hours on bumpy roads through the bush. On the way back – the bridge had not yet been repaired, of course – things got even more tense when in the middle of the night Jens feared missing his return flight on the way through the jungle. It almost seemed as if he had never left his hometown of Berlin. Because there, too, a central motorway bridge has been completely closed since the beginning of March – there is an acute danger of collapse. Drivers have to accept detours of several hours on bumpy roads through the Berlin neighborhood jungle. All Zambia experts in Tikondane and Germany know which bridge will be repaired first. Spoiler alert: It won’t be the one in the well-known capital.
During these turbulent times all our love from
Elke and the Crew
and happy Easter.
Tiko online!
Just in case you haven’t seen them, here are the links to our Facebook, YouTube, Instagram and even Linkedin.
And all information about visiting, volunteering and rooms on our website: Tikondane.org
– For donation information please have a look on ‘Support Tiko‘, Global Giving, our fundraising page at DonorSee or Tribuntu –
