Exciting news for everyone who helped to bring us to this point through our Indiegogo campaign: We officially broke ground on the renovations at the Chikondi Community Center last week! We have just begun the last step before being able to open the doors of the Chikondi Community Center as a place of learning, hope, empowerment, and joy for other vulnerable women in the Ng’ombe compound. We see this renovation process as not just another check on the list to becoming a place of hope, but as another way to spread hope, even now.

So we’ve connected our builder, Fred, with a CiH woman’s son who has been eager to provide for his family but hasn’t found work before this. Him and his friend are there from sunrise to sunset working as hard as possible because they, too, share the vision for what this place will be and what it is now: hope and opportunity. We’re using local craftsmen (friends and a husband of one CiH woman) to create our iron gate for our wall fence to provide a safe place for the women in our program. We’re getting the whole community involved, benefitting from the opportunity to be a part of what Chikondi Community Center is to the Ng’ombe compound. We believe in empowering Zambians to recognize their incredible talents and abilities, and we are so grateful to get to include so many skilled men as a part of this renovation process.

The building we purchased is what we’d like to affectionately call a “fixer-upper.” We knew this going into it. We knew that we’d love to enlist the help of the community, bringing all hands together to really take ownership for what this facility will mean for years to come. This facility consists of 10 rooms, ones we can envision coming alive with seminars, new life skills training programs, conversations of encouragement, fabric being cut and sewn into beautiful products, and hope.

And we want to invite you to be a part of every process, even this one. There’s a huge need, one of around $9,000 beyond the cost of the building to get this building up to operating standards. This includes everything from building a wall fence to keep the ladies safe, to painting our name on the side of the building, to replacing rotting doors, plastering the walls to keep dust from being inhaled, and everything in between. Below you’ll find a list of projects we need your help with. You can buy a door, a window, a bag of concrete, and so much more. Check it out. You, too, can provide hope and opportunity to the people of the Ng’ombe compound. You, too, can help renovate the Chikondi Community Center. Let’s do this.

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1 Window for $30 (4 needed) Glass Panes $44 Window Putty $10 1 Burglar-Proof (barred) Door for $100 (2 needed) 1 Interior Door for $36 (2 needed) 1 Hardwood Door for $240 (2 needed) 1 Lock for $15 (4 needed) 2.5 Liters of Roof Sealant for $26 (2 needed) 2 Boxes of Roofing Nails for $20

(Next items for the Security Wall Fence) 200 Tons of Concrete Stones for $130 160 Tons of River Sand for $104 10 Tons of Building Sand for $120 10 Tons of Cement for $116 (9 needed) Reinforcement Bars for $39 50 Concrete Blocks for $38 (64 needed!)

(Next items for Wall Plaster to minimize dust inhalation) Building Sand for $121 (2 needed) Cement for $117 (3 needed) Undercoat for $50 (6 needed) 1 Liter of Paint for $32 (4 needed) Paint Brushes $7

Labor $75 (28 needed) Transportation for Materials $200

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Roll up your sleeves. Put on your hard hat and click “Donate” to enter in the price of your sponsored building material.

In just a few days, with your help and the photos to prove it, we’d love to be shouting “Move That Bus” (or our ’94 Rav4, but bus sounds more legit)! We'll be updating this entry and crossing things off as donations pour in...

With Chikondi, Amy