The Admin Team's Visit

Last week we had seven lovely people from the UK come and visit us here in Zambia. We call this team the 'Admin Team’ which, I assure you, is a much more fun team than it sounds!

                          

The Admin Team comes every year in late October or early November. We like to squelch them with the hottest heat of the hot season and get them to work very hard while sweating profusely! Their job is to weigh, measure and photograph all of the children at the schools and to sit down with each child and their carer to see how things are going at home, in school, and with their health. Evenings are spent inputting all of this information into spreadsheets.

This week is very important for us as Beyond Ourselves. We use this information as part of the child sponsorship programme but also this data is used to look at the overall growth and development of the children at the schools, assessing the family needs in the community and this process often highlights medical issues as well.

It’s a privilege to welcome each family and sit down and talk with them. People share their stories and we get to hear about their highs and lows of the year gone by. We rejoice with them when their children have been healthy and they’ve been able to provide for their family, we sit and feel their pain when they share about deaths in their family, loss of jobs and the hardships they’ve faced.

                           

And now that the team is gone, we look through the data - each form, each line in the spreadsheet is one child, each child represents one family… We are encouraged as we can see the children are generally growing steadily and we are seeing fewer medical issues. We’ve also been made aware of some very worrying home situations we need to look into, some children who are being treated very badly by their carers. Now we sit down with the children who have low BMI’s and see if they are getting enough food to eat at home or not. Now we look into those children who have had persistent headaches this past year and see if maybe they need glasses. Now we visit the families who are particularly struggling and deliver alternative gifts.

The child sponsorship programme is integral to what we do. It enables us to provide education and food but also help care for children and their families. If you’d like to be a part of this programme and sponsor a child, it only costs £12.50 and really gives so much to a child and their family. Email info@beyondourselves.co.uk if you’d like more information.