Zomba Action Project (ZAP) is a registered charity based in Coleraine, established in 2003 with the aim of helping improve life for people in the Zomba region of Malawi, a nation ranked the 4th poorest country in the world in 2019.
ZAP is a cross-community charity originally set up by people who had worked or lived in Zomba and it is run on an entirely voluntary basis, drawing on the support of people not just in Coleraine but across the Causeway Coast and Glens Council area.
Over these past two decades, ZAP has raised more than £1m for a range of programmes and projects; these include:
- Provision of village wells to provide clean, accessible water
- Supporting orphan children, of whom there are many due to poor health and rampant diseases such as malaria
- Providing educational materials for primary schools
- Helping start-up businesses to promote self sufficiency
- Feeding programmes for the poorest people during the regular instances of food shortages due to drought or floods
However, alongside these various development projects which ZAP promotes in local communities, ZAP also recognises the importance of giving young people the opportunity to gain an education and thus help to break the poverty cycle in families. Unfortunately, secondary education is not free in Malawi so many families cannot meet the cost of school fees.
So, each year, ZAP funds as many boys and girls as it can afford to attend secondary school so that these children do not miss out on secondary education and the chance to achieve their goals in life.
In the course of providing these scholarships, we also see how the lack of affordable IT equipment is inhibiting many students so this year we are launching a major effort to source surplus laptops or tablets for shipping to Malawi on our regular containers. So if your organisation (or your family and friends) has updated your hardware recently or is planning to do so in the near future, we would be delighted to receive your old items.
Simply email me on wavellpsm@gmail.com or give me a call on 07872051985 and I will arrange a pick-up.
Thanking you so much in anticipation,
WAVELL MOORE
CHAIR-ZOMBA ACTION PROJECT