Laying the foundations for a better life

At The Zambia Society Trust, we are working tirelessly to improve the lives of people in Zambia, particularly children and young people, so that future generations might get the opportunities their parents never had.

With a history dating back to 1968, the Trust is a small charity run entirely by volunteers. The Zambia Society was founded in 1968 to encourage and strengthen ties between Britain and Zambia. In 1991 the Society launched The Zambia Society Trust in response to increasing poverty in Zambia and the devastating effects of the HIV epidemic. In 2006 the Society and Trust were amalgamated as The Zambia Society Trust.

Almost every penny raised in donations is directly used to improve the lives of disadvantaged Zambians through our various projects. A large portion of our funding also comes from subscriptions paid by members, who are kept regularly updated on how their money is spent.

Our projects include support and funding for schools and hospitals, grants for disadvantaged students to pursue higher education, mobility aids for disabled children, bursaries for health workers wishing to improve their skills, and footballs and netballs for schoolchildren to encourage exercise and help young Zambians experience the joy of sport.

Poverty and disease have a particularly damaging effect on children in Zambia. Almost 1.2 million children in Zambia are orphans – around 6% of the entire population. Many of these children don’t have access to the most basic amenities that we take for granted, such as schools and clean water. A lack of education means that most will struggle to pull themselves out of the poverty trap, a lack of safe water and education on health leads to particular susceptibility to disease and a lack of a childhood means many young Zambians are forced to grow up too fast.

These are injustices that we simply cannot accept and The Zambia Society Trust has big ambitions to do even more within the country in the coming years.