Cecilia: Hope for Mapepe

By SITEMBILE SIWAWA

SHE is the saviour to people of Mapepe in Chilanga. At 27, Cecilia Nyasulu has added value to the vulnerable people of this area although, she lives 20 kilometres away.

Cecilia is a resident of Lusaka's Kamwala but her services which are community-based are of immense value to the people of Mapepe.

Cecilia, who comes from a family of six, did her primary school at Nkamenya Girls' School in Malawi and then came to Zambia where she did her Grade Eight to 12 at Saint Monica's Secondary School in Chipata.

After which she studied for a diploma in management at the National Institute of Public Administration (NIPA) in 2005.

 "After my course at NIPA, I started work at Sedter Development Trust as a volunteer and worked there for close to three years," said the soft-spoken Cecilia.

It is from working with vulnerable children at Sedter that she realised her passion for community work and she recalls how early in life she had dreamt of becoming a religious sister. "

During my childhood days, I really wanted to be a nun because I had the heart for the poor," she said.

Despite not achieving her religious calling, her dream of doing community work did not die, hence in 2007, Cecilia launched the Mapepe project.

"Before I launched the Mapepe project, I did a survey of Chainda, Mapepe and Shimabala areas to ascertain the necessity of the project and I realised that Mapepe was the best because it had lots of challenges," she said.

She also said "Mapepe is one of those areas that are known for prostitution, crime and high intake of alcohol amongst the youths and so I thought taking my projects there would help alleviate some of these challenges".

But Cecilia had a tough time convincing the community members to accept her projects based on their past experiences where dishonest people used them to lobby money from donors.

"When I brought my projects here, I was not easily accepted by the community and some even reached an extent of calling me a Satanist and looking at my age they thought I was too young to do anything for them," she said.

However, through interventions from other community members, she was finally accepted anyway.

Nevertheless Cecilia's dream was to empower women with various skills through a women's club but was later advised of the main need of the community.

The people of Mapepe were hungry for education and that's the path Cecilia took and built Mapepe Blessed Hope Community School.

With the help of funders from Ireland, she built a one by six classroom block and immediately started offering classes to children in the community.

The school now boasts of 535 children and classes range from baby class to grade seven.

Apart from the community school and women's club, Cecilia also has a feeding programme at the school as most children come from poor homes which cannot afford regular meals.

There is also a project for taking care of the elderly in the community who have no one to take care of them.
 
And she has since opened an orphanage which houses 14 children from within the community.

As part of fund-raising ventures to help run various activities because she does not receive any funding, Cecilia rears chickens, cockerels, pigs and rabbits. 

She said "the money we realise from selling the chickens, pigs, rabbits and cockerels goes to paying teachers who help us with the children.

We also use it to buy food for the aged, feeding programme and at the orphanage.

"During her free time, Cecilia loves socialising with her family whom she relies on for strength to soldier on with her projects.

She also spends her free time at church conducting youth entrepreneurship trainings.

Cecilia hopes to open up her own college for disabled children and build a hospice for the sick.

She is currently in a relationship.