The Rainbow Project

The Rainbow Project in Ndola, in the Copper-belt region of Zambia, is run by the Association Pope John Paul the Twenty-third.  Its vision is a large scale "model of care" for orphans and vulnerable children, and has been operating in Zambia since 1985.  By 1998 the situation in Zambia made it clear that the Rainbow Project needed to scale up to deal with the ever increasing number of children affected by HIV/AIDS. The model of care reaches out into all sections of the community; school programmes, widow support and micro credit systems are just a few of Rainbow's projects.

Street Child Africa supports the Rainbow Project's Street Children Services programme, and ensures that street workers are on the streets of Ndola every day to find and befriend the children that live there, and offer them choices. Just as in Kitwe, many of the children on the streets of Ndola sniff glue in order to dull the pain of their existence and take away their hunger. This presents a real challenge to the work of Rainbow, however since 1998 they have managed to halve the number of children living in street situations in Ndola. The Rainbow project runs a drop in centre specifically for the children living in street situations in Ndola, which is open all through the week and offers recreation and educational opportunities. Children are also invited to prepare for reintegration by staying at the Umukulamfula Children Centre, which caters for up to 20 boys. Children stay in the UCC for as long as it takes to trace their families and ensure successful reintegration.

As children travel from all over Zambia, and sometimes even its neighbouring countries, reintegration can be a real challenge for the project. A worker needs to accompany the child on the trip home, and this increases the cost. On top of this, follow up is key to successful reintegration but if a child comes from far away, it proves hard to effectively follow up. Rainbow have joined PCI Zambia's AfriKidSafe network, which hopes to bring all the agencies working in Zambia together, meaning that they can follow up on children in their own locality.