Zambia Country Report from "Volunteering Worldwide" 2001
"Poverty means that many Zambians are primarily concerned with mere survival and have little time and energy for volunteer work. Nevertheless, the aforementioned home care project, for instance, has succeeded in recruiting over 500 volunteers, mainly through the churches. Over 90% are women, usually in the age bracket between 30 and 40 years of age. These women often suffer poor economic circumstances themselves, and it takes them great effort to feed and cloth their children and send them to school. Nevertheless, most of these volunteers work an average of one day a week on the project and care for about 10 patients. Furthermore, seven out of ten volunteers trained between 1991 en 1994 were still active in 1998. Religious conviction is an important motivation to sustain this volunteer work, which is heavy in both physical and emotional terms. The churches play an important part in promoting mutual support and assistance, and in recruiting volunteers. Christian groupings in Zambia traditionally provide emotional and spiritual support to the diseased and infirm. The fact that the assistance and support is mainly provided by women is related to the traditional division of tasks between men and women and the fact that women are more loyal attendants of church then men. In addition to religious motives, other factors play a role in sustaining volunteer work, such as the visible improvements to the health and quality of life among the patients and feelings of mutual solidarity and pride for the results. Volunteers also build up considerable expertise of health and caring by their activities and achieve a special status within the community."
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