Zambia Facts

Poverty

• Zambia is one of the poorest countries in the world.
• Many industries have left Zambia because of employment expenses.
• Households lead by women tend to be poorer.

Education

• Kids cannot attend public school without a uniform; most are unable to attend because of the cost of the uniforms.
• School lasts for half a day.
• Students are tested and placed into appropriate school levels before beginning school.
• Girls are more likely to drop out of school in the secondary grades.

Infrastructure

• Most roads have deep potholes.
• Cities schedule when sections will receive power for a few hours each day.

Children & Orphans

• Children will marry children to escape violence in the home and/or poverty.
• Group homes with little love and compassion are available to homeless kids, but many prefer to sleep on a straw mat in an alley.
• Many children have been imprisoned for minor offenses and for long periods of time.
  • In some cases, children will be housed in adult populations within the prison.

Food & Water

• Food is not always consistently available in stores.
• Staple food items are:
  • Dried fish
  • Cornmeal
  • Tomatoes
  • Cassava (a tuber)
  • Beans
  • Peanuts
  • Rape (like spinach)

Disease

• HIV is the leading cause of death.
• Many adults and adolescents do not have basic understanding of the transmission and prevention of HIV.
  • Husbands and wives often will not tell each other that they have AIDS.
• Anti-retroviral drugs are free but must be taken within 2 hours of exposure.
• Major health risks:
  • Tuberculosis
  • Diarrheal diseases
  • Pneumonia
  • Malaria

Medical Care

• Medical care is available at hospitals but family must provide basic care such as changing sheets and feeding the patient.
• Medical equipment (even such as blood pressure cuffs) is scarce, and donated items are usually stolen.
• Hospitals are run-down, often having broken windows and crumbling exteriors.

Women

• Women wear a belt of beads as a wedding band under the clothing, visible only to their husbands.
• Women do most of the selling along the street, selling tomatoes, bricks, charcoal, chopped rocks for gravel, etc.
• Women do not speak of their menstruation with their husbands—they set a red bead on the dresser when it begins and then set out a white bead when it is done.
• If a woman does not have a child before she dies, her body is beaten and her grave is never visited; out-of-wedlock pregnancy is, therefore, expected and normal.

Data and numbers have been summarized, averaged, and/or rounded.

Sources: Personal experience by STF’s members, Operation World (7th ed.), CIA’s World Factbook, UNICEF, WHO, CDC, BBC