Dealing with infertility, IVF babies

Dr Swebby Macha says IVF is safe

DOREEN NAWA, Lusaka
JANET SINKALA sat at an interdenominational church gathering meeting in Lusaka at Government complex.
She tearfully explained her confusion over why she was struggling to conceive.
At first sight, she was hesitant to talk about her situation but after calming down, she opened up. She opted not to use her name and pictures.
She has been to several gynecologists, traditional healers and men of God in search of a solution to her predicament, all to no avail.
All her friends, she said, had fallen pregnant within months after getting married. Now she has separated herself from her friends for fear of being stressed over her failure to conceive.
Unfortunately, the Zambian tradition heaps the blame on the woman and not the husband, even when he has not fathered a child anywhere.
Mrs Sinkala says she has eaten healthy food and gone to the gym but she simply does not understand what is wrong with her.
Now her only option is to frequent church gatherings, hoping one day God will answer her prayer and she will conceive.
At the same time, desperation has not spared her.
First, she is in a panic about her age. She is getting on the wrong side of 35 and she feels it is too late for her to have her first child.
“I am worried about my status, we have tried everything as a couple and nothing seems to work. We went to various hospitals and my husband and I were told that we are all okay. We have resorted to seeking God’s guidance for this situation because we have tried all we can,” Mrs Sinkala says.
Asked whether she has tried In vitro fertilisation (IVF), she says the couple’s religious belief cannot allow such a process.IVF is a medical procedure whereby an egg is fertilised by sperm in a test tube or elsewhere outside the woman’s body.
“We have a friend who had suggested IVF for me and my husband but the option is what we cannot do because it conflicts with our belief. The challenge is that we do not know the donor of the sperm,” she says.
Mrs Sinkala praised her husband for being supportive saying he attends medical appointments whenever requested.
Her husband, Kebby Sinkala, says because of the situation the couple is faced with, even the relationships with family, friends have become strained.
“This problem is too much on us, the joy we enjoyed in the first six years of this marriage is no longer there. And the biggest challenge is that even when we attend family events, we are always asked when we will conceive.
“We get tired of people asking how the process is going, or offering suggestions on how to conceive. This is so unfair but that is how the Africans see marriage. It’s about bearing children,” Mr Sinkala says.
As a result of this challenge, Mr Sinkala says the couple has learnt a lot on how to maintain privacy in their marriage.
“We have been taught a lesson. Deciding how much information to share with family and friends and when to share it is what we do now,” he says.
He says this situation has brought them closer because even when the couple agree to seek any medical or spiritual intervention, they go together.
Today, there are a lot of women suffering these forms of dehumanisation due to their inability to conceive, and in most cases, the fault is usually laid on their shoulders, without the slightest knowledge that the men could be the cause of the problems.
A renowned Gynecologist and Obstetrician Swebby Macha says struggling to get pregnant can be a serious blow to the self-esteem of both women and men.
Dr Macha says several surveys reveal that women with infertility challenges feel flawed, while men, too, feel inadequate.
“Infertility also has a big impact on a couple’s relationship. Many couples find themselves trying to hide their feelings from their partner. Of course, while the older you are, the more your egg quality declines, the harder it is to conceive and the higher the rate of miscarriage, her age is not the most significant of her problems,” Dr Macha says.
Disbelief is a common issue among couples with infertility challenges.
Dr Macha says majority of people with infertility issues never imagined that they would experience it.
“For many couples prior to trying to conceive, it never occurred to them that they may have trouble getting pregnant when they wanted to. Many couples say that they may have waited too long to try to become pregnant. Most couples do not want to try IVF, I can safely say that , now we just enhance the ovaries and sperms of the affected couples, and that’s it,” Dr Macha says.
Dr Macha says many women and men understand the link between a woman’s age and fertility but they often do not fully understand how soon a woman’s fertility begins to decline significantly.
Statistics by the World Health Organization (WHO) show that more than 180 million couples (one in every four couples) in developing countries suffer from primary or secondary infertility.
WHO says infertility in Africa is caused by various infections in over 85 percent of women compared to 33 percent worldwide which emphasizes the importance of prevention programmes in Africa.
Furthermore WHO statistics show that a healthy 30-year-old woman has about a 20 percent chance per month of getting pregnant, but by age 40, her chance is only about five percent per month.
Infertility in developing countries like Zambia is an under-studied concern in sexual and reproductive health, yet its impact can be staggering.
An inability to conceive or bear children can result in being socially disliked or divorced.
While men and women are equally likely to be infertile, in Zambia and Africa as a whole, women are often blamed and infertility has been associated with intimate partner violence. PUBLISHED IN THE ZAMBIA DAILY MAIL ON JULY 23, 2017. LINK: https://www.daily-mail.co.zm/dealing-with-infertility-ivf-babies/

Buumba: Young councillor impacting lives

Buumba after receiving the 2017 Zambia Woman of the year award

DOREEN NAWA, Kafue
FEWER women than men make it big in life or indeed run big companies.
Today, women hold only around a fifth of seats in national parliaments around the world, and the gender gap will not close up any time soon.
It is tough for many women to be optimistic because of the negative perception that society attaches to those that dream big.
But change is happening, and not just in the conventional corridors of power.
And Buumba Malambo, 24, is determined to bring about that change.
She is one of the youngest ward councillors in Zambia and has stepped out to add to that number of women that have taken leadership roles of change in their communities.
Ms Malambo, Magoba ward councillor in Kafue district, located about 45 kilometres south of Lusaka, is the first-ever female councillor of Magoba ward.
Ms Malambo won the 2016 elections by a landslide, beating all her 13 male opponents to write a new history of the ward.
This did not make her sit on her laurels as first woman councillor in the ward, she instead started working immediately.
Not long after her inauguration, Ms Malambo announced her intention to contest the deputy council chairperson’s seat for Kafue district.
And apart from serving as councillor, she is a member of several other committees, such as the Ministry of Gender and Child national co-ordinating committee.
While everyone is familiar with the female leaders who generate headlines, Ms Malambo has quietly impacted her community massively.
A drive in her ward proves that Ms Malambo is a household name because of her work in sponsoring children’s education.
“The good thing about education is that it gives you the ability to think in a different perspective,” Ms Malambo says.
Her statement is what motivated her to start sponsoring a boy, who is now in Grade Eight.
Because of her dream to uplift the lives of the vulnerable through education, Ms Malambo started a charitable foundation called Buumbalambo Foundation.
The Buumbalambo Foundation focuses its efforts in her ward.
“It’s not where I was born. It’s just a place I found myself because my lecturer took me there for my internship in 2014 when I was a social work student at the University of Zambia (UNZA). Because of what I observed during my internship, I was motivated by three girls I used to see every morning carrying firewood and they were not in school. I enquired further and found out that children don’t go to school because they cannot afford the requirements,” Ms Malambo says.
She told herself, “No-one cares about these people, it seems no one even knows they exist but people stay here. I can be the change they have not seen in their lives.”
Just this thought was enough to give a push to her dream. Growing up with a passion of helping others, Ms Malambo started charity work at a tender age.
“At the age of 15, I was already involved in charity work with the Judith Chikonde Foundation and participated in the maize distribution project, where I was donating maize meal to the people of Mupambe village during the typhoid outbreak in 2007. I was even appointed Mufulira Youth Secretary by the then Mufulira Town Clerk from 2008 to 2010,” Ms Malambo recalls.
And when she went to Magoba, an extremely remote area consisting of about 30 widely dispersed villages, which are only accessible on foot, that was an opportunity to relive her passion.
Buumbalambo Foundation focuses on the rights of women and empowers school-going children with clothes, school books and beddings.
The foundation has four projects currently running: Mwana Apunzile sponsorship programme, where people voluntarily choose a child and support their education. Now, with the help of sponsors in Zambia and abroad, she is supporting 535 children.
Another project is the ‘Sewing a future’ project for young mothers where they sew and make crafts that are sold locally and internationally to help raise money to support their children’s education.
The rest are a farm project aimed at assisting in food production to reduce the hunger and malnutrition levels in Magoba ward, and the ‘Pop a future’ project, where young people are empowered with employment through skills, ICT and popcorn machines.
Through her work, Ms Malambo has received several recognitions for women and children empowerment both locally and internationally.
As her 17th award, Ms Malambo will on November 17, 2017 receive the ‘Outstanding African motivational award 2017’ in the African Image Maker category at a ceremony in Netherlands.
The same award was won by Dr Kenneth Kaunda in 2012.This makes her the youngest-ever recipient of the Voice Awards.
Two weeks ago, Ms Malambo was in Seychelles, where she was selected to represent young women in Africa at the first-ever Women’s Parliament conference.
Some of the local and international awards Ms Malambo has won over the years are the 2015 Women4Africa Award, 2015 Africa Arising Award, 2015 Zambia Woman of the Year Award and the 2014 African International Achievers Award.
Ms Malambo was born in 1991 in the mining town of Mufulira on the Copperbelt, where she grew up and attended school.
After secondary school, she went to the University of Zambia, where she obtained a Bachelor’s Degree in Social Work in 2014.
Ms Malambo encourages young people around the world to work hard and become future leaders. On her trip to Seychelles two weeks ago, she told young African women leaders that leadership is not limited to age or status in life.
She urged the young leaders to be the next generation of problem-solvers and to take up the responsibility for banishing hunger and ending HIV/AIDS.
She hopes to see that more young women, being inspired by her, would become great leaders in the future.
For Ms Malambo, leadership is about confidence and decision-making. It is about speaking out, but also doing the important work behind the scenes.
For sure, a great leader will inspire people for generations to come, and bring hope regardless of time in history.
And that’s what Ms Malambo is doing. PUBLISHED IN THE ZAMBIA DAILY MAIL ON JULY 16, 2017. LINK: https://www.daily-mail.co.zm/buumba-young-councillor-impacting-lives/

Livestock: Shibuyunji’s sense of pride

A cow is being passed-on to the next beneficiary

DOREEN NAWA, Shibuyunji
FOR the Ila-Sala people of Shibuyunji district in Central Province, cattle is everything: food, material, culture and wealth.
To them, cattle is life.
Their love for livestock gets so personal and when the livestock is diseased, they, too, get affected.
And because of the regularity of the foot and mouth disease, the people of Shibuyunji district have suffered a set-back.
Flavia Minyoi of Mululuma village in Shibuyunji peeps into her neighbour’s kraal and says, “I hope your cattle are well,” she says in a greeting.
“Livestock play a central role in my work, both as a strategy for alleviating poverty and achieving food security and proper nutrition. I value cattle and livestock in general like we do with humans. And when the livestock is diseased, I get affected, too, so does my family,” Mrs Minyoi says.
Livestock provides food and nutrition for people, while also giving them tangible assets which they can use to improve their livelihoods.
More than any other, the people of Shibuyunji district are cattle-herders par excellence.
Cattle provide almost everything they need for survival, and much more.
They are a symbol of wealth and a source of pride, and a person’s entire life revolves around the herds: the need to pasture and care for them, the need to protect them, and the need to move with them in search of fresh pasture and water.
And when Konkola Copper Mines (KCM) and Village Water Zambia introduced a Pass-on a cow project, the lives of the people of Shibuyunji were revived.
KCM and Village Water Zambia are working with the Veterinary Department, Community Development and other stakeholders in the project areas focusing on disease management thereby contributing to the implementation of the national policy on livestock rearing.
“Foot and mouth disease killed all our cattle and when KCM and Village Water gave us 200 cattle in 2014, we were so happy and we felt honoured because cattle add value to our lives and our identity. Twenty families from various villages benefitted,” Mrs Minyoi says.

Flavia Minyoi

The paramount importance of cattle, for which it is believed that the more the better, has also marked the aggressive nature of not only the Ila-Sala people but other people, too.
Mrs Minyoi explained that each village programme has a tailored approach to animal health and husbandry, based on local resources and livestock.
By combining the provision of livestock with training in animal husbandry, natural resource management, leadership skills and gender equity, the project has created a development model that strengthens the social, economic and ecological fabric of a community.
Under this project, the attention to sustainable livestock development includes improved access to animal health services and disease control, improved management, improved nutrition and improved marketing of livestock and livestock products.
KCM general manager Howard Chilundika says the project is the hallmark of their approach.
“This livestock project has been implemented in three areas, namely Chililabombwe, Chingola and Nampundwe, where more than 400 families have received cows and another 200 families organised in co-operatives and women clubs have been provided with more than 4,000 goats since 2010. We have these projects in areas where we are operating from,” Mr Chilundika says.
Initially, the concept mandated that each farming family who received an animal gift passed on the first female offspring to another in need. While that hand-off of livestock remains a fixture in most projects, the idea has blossomed and encompasses far more than the founders expected.
Mr Chilundika says the efforts by farmers in Shibuyunji on how they have reinvented the “pass-on” idea show immense imagination, eagerness and generosity.
“KCM is still committed to supporting programmes aimed at improving the welfare of people in the country,” Mr Chilundika says.
The KCM sustainable livelihood project is not simply about giving cattle, goats and gardening equipment, the project focuses on improving and promoting the quality of life in the mining communities.
According to Village Water Zambia - the project implementers, there is an improved women empowerment in rural areas through providing food and income-generating animals (draft cattle, dairy cattle and goats), integrated agriculture, human nutrition, market linkages, value-based training for sustainable community transformation and also stronger partnership building.
“If there is something that is given more importance than the giving of livestock to the families of Shibuyunji, it is the gift of hope, opportunity and the very essence of a secure future for the beneficiaries,” says Village Water Zambia country director Elisha Ng’onomo
Mr Ng’onomo says the livestock project has changed lives of people in the three areas where the project is taking place.
It is, however, the hope of every-one that the sustainable livelihood project be extended to other areas because such investments have a long-term impact on sustainable development and in the alleviation of poverty for hundreds of households in the country.
Whether farmers are passing on animals or time and knowledge, the act transforms recipients into donors and produces a profound sense of accomplishment.
Tangible gifts come with intangible benefits of opportunity, dignity and acceptance.
This practice doubles the impact of the original gift, transforming a once impoverished family into full participants who improve and strengthen the bonds within their communities. PUBLISHED IN THE ZAMBIA DAILY MAIL ON JULY 16, 2017. LINK: https://www.daily-mail.co.zm/livestock-shibuyunjis-sense-of-pride/

Lawrence Tapiseni: War memories still alive

Lawrence Tapiseni

DOREEN NAWA, Luangwa
LAWRENCE Tapiseni is 77 years old, and his health is now somewhat failing him. But there is no doubting his commitment to the well-being of the people of Luangwa.
He is sometimes referred to as the father of Nkondo ya Mkwezalamba (War of Sacrifice). He rendered invaluable service during the Kavalamanja liberation war. For his role, he was honoured by late President Sata in 2012 for his service and involvement in the Kavalamanja war.
On March 6, 1978 around 09:15 hours, Ian Smith’s Rhodesian Army attacked Luangwa district, specifically Kavalamanja and Kakaro village’s in a war that was to last for 72 hours. The most intensified aerial and ground bombardment resulted in unaccounted deaths, internal displacement and a human crisis that has haunted the local people of these remote villages to date.
Gallant men and women from the defence forces lost their lives, got injured –and for those that still live today recount the experiences of that moment with pain and anguish.
It is the stuff for a documentary by Yezi-Arts.
Against that backdrop, the district of Luangwa has been commemorating the battle of Kavalamanja.
The initiative was initially spearheaded by the people of Luangwa and Yezi-Arts Promotions and Productions, who have produced a documentary titled “Kavalamanja – In Defence of the Nation”, which captures first hand experiences, diverse testimonies of people who experienced the lethal wanton air and ground attacks in a military operation code-named “Operation Turmoil” – in pursuit of freedom fighters from the late Joshua Nkomo’s Zimbabwe’s People’s Revolutionary Army (ZIPRA).
Mr Tapiseni was a Boma messenger by then as well as a home guard, when the villagers of Kakaro sent a message to the office of the district governor that about two vehicles had been bombed by Rhodesian jet fighters resulting in some deaths.
“I remember on March 7, 1978, another notable camp in Kakaro was bombed and six out of nine government officials from the Ministry of Agriculture were killed. They were coming from buying chickens in that area. And immediately we went to bury the bodies in a mass grave. I was part of the team with the district governor then,” he says.
“When we reached the scene, we found that six bodies were lying dead with one body without a leg as hyenas ate it. After enquiring from the Kakaro community on what happened, we were told that when the [Ministry of] Agriculture vehicle reached the junction that goes to Kakaro Basic, a jet flew from the Kavalamanja direction and passed over the vehicle and when the driver sensed danger, he tried to turn towards the road that goes to the school but unfortunately, the jet dropped bombs on the vehicle and six people died on the spot.”
He remembers those who died as Dominic Shambololo, a driver with the agriculture department, James Malaya, officer-in-charge, Department of National Registration, Lazarous Chabucheka Tembo, a passenger coming from Mpika to see his spouse at the Boma, Bernard Phiri, a Mr Mwansa, a self-employed radio repair in the district and one unidentified person.
After burying the six bodies in a mass grave near a big Baobab tree, locally known as Mulambe, they walked about two kilometres when they found 14 freedom fighters lying dead after the Magras truck they were travelling in was also hit by bombs on their way from where they had gone to collect rations and ammunition. These bodies were buried in a mass grave just next to the ruins of the truck. Their remains were later exhumed and buried in a mass grave in Kavalamanja.
“We were also told that on the same day, the jets caused havoc in Kavalamanja village where several people died and others got injured. One prominent soldier known as Captain Kalima died as he was trying to take cover under a big Mutobe tree and his body was taken to Lusaka for burial,” he says.
“Upon burying our colleagues at Kakaro, we started off for the Boma and upon reaching Soweto village near the ZESCO plant, a rebel flew over us and we all had to jump out of the truck for cover. When we saw that it was clear, that was when we proceeded walking the remaining three kilometres to our homes.
“It was a very sad moment for not only the people of Kakaro and Kavalamanja, but for the entire district, a lot of deaths were recorded, the other involved a Mr Kamwamba, a district intelligent officer who died after the vehicle he was traveling in with Lieutenant Panji Kaunda stepped on a landmine.
“During the war struggles, we did a good job, we worked together for the benefit of the people of Luangwa. Truly it was a war of sacrifice and for us here in Luangwa, we call it Nkhondo ya Mkwezalamba. The war went on for four days, jets were being flown all over the skies and there was fear in the people of Luangwa.”
He says he was separated for over eight months from his family because his wife and children had fled Luangwa because of the war.
Born on August 10, 1940 in Luangwa, Mr Tapiseni started school in sub A at Jeniro School in 1951 and five years later in 1956, he qualified to standard three and went to Katondwe Mission where he did standard three to six.
Upon completion of his education, he started looking for a job and his first was as an agriculture demonstrator in 1967 until 1970 under the Ministry of agriculture.
“On January 12, 1971, I started working as a district messenger until 1996 when I retired as an inspector with one star. It is from there that I was deployed in the judiciary department as a court justice at Mphuka Local court,” Mr Tapiseni says.
After working for over a decade, he was transferred to the Luangwa Boma to open the first local court and in 2012, he retired from the civil service.
“After retiring, I was identified as a person who was present during the struggles. And I was tasked to help gather and tell the Kavalamanja story to people that were interested in documenting the happenings during and after the Kavalamanja liberation war struggles,” Mr Tapiseni, who is chairperson for the Kavalamanja Liberation war struggles, says.
“I don’t need motivation to do good to Luangwa and Feira, it’s the area of my birth, for me, this area and Zambia comes first… It was not easy for us, I personally thank Col Ernest Nathan Kabwita (Rtd), the man who was with us on the ground to defend Luangwa district.” PUBLISHED IN THE ZAMBIA DAILY MAIL ON JULY 15, 2017. LINK: https://www.daily-mail.co.zm/lawrence-tapiseni-war-memories-still-alive/

Mechanisation and technology in agriculture touch farmers

At the AGCO Future Farm in Lusaka, Zambia

AGCO, a worldwide manufacturer and distributor of agricultural equipment and solutions, welcomed delegates from 11 countries attending the Southern African Confederation of Agricultural Unions’ (SACAU) Young Agripreneurs Forum to its Future Farm in Zambia for an in-depth three-day programme covering farm mechanization and the business of agriculture.
SACAU is committed to a transformative agenda for agricultural development which is growth-oriented and enterprise-development focused. A key emphasis is working with young farmers and, since 2014, SACAU has run an annual regional young farmers’ forum. The aim of the forums is to create a positive image for agriculture among the next generation and develop role models from within the sector.
While with AGCO, the young agripreneurs spent time in the classroom, workshop and on the farm. Among the topics covered were the role of mechanization in primary production, how technology is changing the face of farming, plus business and entrepreneurship skills.
Delegates were able to get familiar with AGCO’s leading brands of agricultural machinery including Challenger, Fendt, Massey and Valtra, together with the Company’s products and services aimed specifically at supporting African agriculture. A highlight was practical, hands-on experience with the range of Massey Ferguson equipment which includes tractors, harvesting machinery, hay & forage tools, implements and materials handlers.
The AGCO Future farm is based just outside Lusaka. A 150ha working farm, it demonstrates the value of mechanisation, technology systems and best agronomic practices through real-life experience. It is a centre for developing leading-edge agriculture for Africa.
“We were delighted to host the Youth Forum at our AGCO Future Farm,” says Nuradin Osman, AGCO Vice President and General Manager Africa. “This is exactly the kind of educational role the farm was set up for. Now more than ever, it is vital to encourage the new generation of farmers in Africa who are crucial to the future and advancement of agriculture. Mechanisation and technology touch farmers no matter where they are in terms of development. It applies to those who are just starting to mechanize for the first time, to professional agribusiness seeking to raise their game and to entrepreneurs wanting to develop farmer services like mechanized contracting.”
Ishmael Sunga, CEO of SACAU commented: “Young people are setting a new pace in driving agricultural transformation in Africa. The young champions that we work with really are leaders in their communities, challenging the negative public perceptions about farming and showing that agriculture is a dynamic and, most importantly, a profitable career to pursue.”