My trip to Zambia: the end is near!!

Project is coming to an end! In terms of business deals, we successfully created a partnership between Lupwa and another NGO called SOS villages (it’s an international NGO that provides homes for widows and OVCs). They ordered 9 boxes from us and the order happened Friday! It’s a great start to Lupwa’s self-sustainability.

This past week we went into a large grocery store called SPAR (it’s almost the equivalent of Loeb in Canada). We told them our idea and they loved it. They currently buy all of their vegetables from one supplier and they would like to create some competition to maintain the quality of their products. They also stated that they are looking for a new tomato supplier. That’s us! So we had a meeting with them this today to propose the idea and show them some samples. They’re going to call us back but I really think we have a chance (95% sure) and I’m extremely excited about this partnership. It would be such a nice way to wrap up our project too. We’ve created some M&E sheets to keep track of the family empowerment. Every month a sheet will be submitted to Lupwa by the community stating how many children are now going to school, how many meals are eaten a day, and what the weekly income is for most of these families. I’m not expecting to see much change at first, but I definitely think that once this project grows and a solid partnership is formed throughout the years, then we will be able to really compare the before and after results.

We had a go away party Friday and everybody was invited! It was fun and sad at the same time lol. This week is going to be spent on tying up any loose ends pertaining to the project and maybe starting on the papers that we have to submit once we get back. We’re also going to have to start packing for ZANZIBAR! 52 hour train ride there and 27 hour bus ride back. It’ll be brutal, but we’re a group of 9 so it’ll be fun. I probably won’t have any internet while I’m there so the next time you will hear from me is when I land in Ottawa!! August 17^th!

Take care!! Thank you for reading my blog!