Community Internships in Zambia

Tikondane Community Centre

Tucked into eastern Zambia, one of Southern Africa’s poorest corners, Tikondane Community Centre runs essential services in its local community.

Tikondane (locally known as ‘Tiko’) is a community centre located in the Katete area of eastern Zambia. Their mission is to fight poverty through better education, health and entrepreneurship. They focus on helping people to help themselves whilst maintaining their traditional culture and values.

The centre runs several essential services including:

  • adult education
  • agriculture
  • health
  • support for HIV carers
  • grain distribution during critical food shortages

Tiko was founded by Elke Kroeger-Radcliffe (who is currently the volunteer director), a passionate cross-cultural psychologist, who got a job training the nurses at the nearby St Francis Mission Hospital in Katete in 1993. Read about her fascinating story here: www.tikondane.org/about-us.

 

Meet the interns

Below are three interviews with former interns. If you want to know who these people are, and how your money is being invested supporting their internship, have a listen:

 

 

 

The Women of Tikondane

This video shows the women of Tikondane on their way to a meeting. Music is an incredibly important part of the culture in this part of Zambia, have a listen:

More Songs by the Women of Tikodane

The Internships

Tikondane is looking to the future – a future where they no longer rely on donations for their survival, and where they are completely run by local Zambians. A future where they are self sustaining. RoundTrip is assisting in these efforts. Primarily, we are helping 14 young Zambians to take part in an internship program at Tiko, where they help provide crucial services to the local community. In summary…:

  1. These interns are school leavers with plenty of potential, but lack the resources to continue their education at tertiary level.
  2. They have little hope of finding a job in this part of Zambia where unemployment is about 80%.
  3. RoundTrip supplies the interns with a regular monthly allowance, which is often the only cash income they and their families (frequently numbering more than 10 people) receive.
  4. RoundTrip also contributes to their study by supplying solar lighting and educational supplies and training.

The internships reflect Tiko’s diverse areas of activity and include areas such as:

  • gardening and permaculture
  • accounting
  • administration
  • hospitality
  • teaching
  • counselling
  • entrepreneurship

These promising young people receive training in areas such as leadership and financial management as part of their internship. It is hoped that most of the interns will take up management roles at Tiko in the future. All the interns are members of Tiko’s management committee, and already play a leading role in running the organisation. They are on course to become future leaders at Tikondane and within their community.

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