Zambia

In response to a request from the Irish Congregation of Sisters of Charity two Australian Sisters joined them in January 1984. Both worked initially in secondary schools and as others joined them in the nineties, their ministry diversified until they found themselves working in health care, in primary schools and in a Refugee camp in the North Western region close to the Angolan and Zaire borders. Some of these Sisters who volunteered for Zambia went with vast missionary experience in Fiji, Bougainville, Thailand, Papua New Guinea and Western Samoa. All of this experience was invaluable in places such as the United Nations Refugee Settlement where the people came initially from Angola and Zaire, with smaller groups from Burundi, Rwanda, Somalia and the Sudan. The Sisters' skills in teaching, administration, formation of Church Leaders and social work with the women and girls were highly valued by the people and by those trying to ensure for them a better quality of life and, ultimately, repatriation.

One Sister worked with Irish, Zambian and Nigerian Sisters of Charity nursing in a rural hospital in Chikuni in the south of the country. Desperately short of drugs to treat diseases, they also found many people chronically short of food, clothing and money for education. Following very serious drought conditions most areas lacked a clean water supply so that the dreaded cholera broke out in 1992, firstly in the Kitwe area in the North, but sporadically in other areas also, and this was a terrifying addition to the malaria, tuberculosis, meningitis and AIDS-related illnesses always present. Life-threatening experiences for the Sisters came from virulent diseases, from the presence of bandits, from poor roads and vehicles which led to fatal accidents. The Sisters mourned the deaths of many expatriate missioners and friends, some of whom succumbed to the ever-present malaria and other diseases.