Often this week we’d heard the phrase “It Takes Courage”: this is the name of a curriculum aimed at “youth,” ages 10-35! Several young people and their parents had expressed their thanks for this program that focuses on character development and HIV-AIDS education. We wanted to know more so we signed on for a meeting with those who work with youth.
My husband David and I met Edgar, a young man who directs SHHAYC (pronounced “shack”), the Spring Harvest HIV-Aids Youth Action Club – Edgar stressed “youth action.” He and his co-leaders took us to a block building. I wondered if we would be joining a meeting in there – I could see that a light was on through the low door. As we approached I realized I was looking at the cleanest chicken coop I’d ever seen! Truly cleaner than any other structure we’d been in, these 100 or so teenaged chicks were housed under warming lights with proper food/water/nutrients. Edgar told us that selling the chickens at 7 weeks would bring a profit to provide scholarship money for aspiring high school students who were members in the network of George churches ($80+/year). He plans to train other youth and hopes soon that more chicken coops can provide funds.
I was startled! This was the first I’d heard of chickens or fundraising. The Shack has been very busy. Edgar told us about the thousand or so young people who’d graduated from “It Takes Courage” after the 16 weeks course. They receive a bracelet with that phrase on it – see them on our team’s wrists. He told us about rallies where hundreds of youth gather to worship and to hear the truth of Christ, lock-ins where the young people praise God all night (and you should hear them praise!), sponsored soccer games, and his hope that they can encourage young people to appreciate and to hold to Zambian culture. Even though a small percentage of youth in George have funding for higher education he told us that the group sponsors career counseling, including meetings with a variety of professionals. We talked with him about HIV-AIDS – he said he’d lost many friends to the disease. He preaches abstinence and hopes that even in an environment where kids are in so much poverty and have so much time on their hands that they will walk with Christ. I had tears in my eyes as I listened to this most earnest of young men who, so clearly, has God’s hand on his life.
The challenges to the program? There is no youth center and no building large enough for the young people to gather. He says they need a sound system so that the overflow crowd can hear the message. Music, Instruments, Bibles...other things necessary to Western ministries. But you’ve got to see this place – there’s the challenge: block homes covered in random metal and plastic, dirt and trash on the ground, sewage running beside the pocked roads, shacks selling alcohol in little sleeve packages for cheap. Four out of five people unemployed, hanging out all day. Every single family touched by HIV-AIDS whether they’ve lost family, taken in an orphan, or living with the virus. High School too expensive for most families. Hunger, boredom, sadness.
But here was a light - a young man and his co-workers who had a vision of a new world for the young people of George, a strong untouchable belief that Christ can and will fill the void in the spirits of these young people, to elevate them to a new hope and possible new life. Edgar is one of the many people we’ve met who seem impossible to find in a place of such despair. While he has nothing, he has everything and he’s brimming with excitement over how to share it. It does take courage -- please pray for Edgar and SHHAYC, he says he’ll be praying for us.
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