MORE FROM 2019 -SEPTEMBER VISIT

So our website is well under way- real thanks to Scott Renton who joined us this year as a Trustee for his expertise and work in doing this - but it seemed a good idea to update our recent doings. I, Joanna, made the next trip from Scotland in September. An action packed few weeks, some interesting developments. Dr Sheikh from Livingstone had arranged for more training to be delivered to  his staff team and for a previous trainee to get certified as a trainer. This necessitated a 2 week trip to Livingstone - someone has to do it! With the support of the Hospital management and the Ministry of Health Humphrey was seconded from Chainama to do this bit of work with me so not only did 11 Mental Health professionals receive the ZTA training but Mwazanje Mwale, a Clinical Officer in the Mental Health unit, is now a Certified Trainer and Humphrey a Master Trainer able to train other trainers!

Did manage a bit of down time and saw the amazing sight of the Falls with virtually no water as well as rhinos scarily close. Also caught some of the traditional regional ceremony which was taking place around Livingstone at the time.

LIVINGSTONE HOSPITAL, PSYCHIATRIC UNIT

PART OF THE CEREMONY

Either side of this visit I met with colleagues at UTH to discuss how best data about TA use could be collected and had a very productive follow up meeting with some of the people who had attended Liz's training earlier in the year. There is real enthusiasm for more training for people working with children in special education, prison services and the Centres of Excellence. Hope fully we will be able to take this forward during 2020.

ZART WORKSHOP DAY

I joined meetings with ZART and was able to join them for one of the Bongo Hive workshops. These, run by Challenges Zambia and funded as part of this year's Capacity Building work by the Scottish Government have proved very positive and a very good foundation on which to build an operational structure for ZART  over the next couple of years.



I also met with Dr Jacqueline Folotiya about arranging training in Case Study writing. After discussion it was agreed we had not thought through well enough what was needed and did not at that point have the budget to support this. However we have been allowed to reallocate funds from the grant not now needed elsewhere and are hopefully getting this arranged for early 2020.

I also made useful links with the INGO forum so we can link in with other INGOs keeping in the loop and learning from their experience especially about shaping our Safeguarding and other policies.

JACARANDA TIME

Another useful contact was with Sapphira Mulemba at CIDRZ and we hope that will lead to a fruitful partnership. It was good to also catch up with Maragarate Munakampe about the work she is doing as part of the crucial data collection and other MEL systems.
There was a very positive meeting with Zaliwe Banda at the Ministry where the support for expansion of the training was reaffirmed with a plan to extend it to Community Mental Health teams when possible.
It was also good to meet up with other colleagues and friends. ZART and ZTA are certainly becoming a recognised part of the Mental Health scene in Zambia and getting the message out about the training to a wider audience. Keep up the good work!
All in all an interesting four weeks and as always the base at Gossner Mission really appreciated, it is such a peaceful and friendly place to be.

MOVING ON TO A WEB SITE!

 Not before time you might say we are getting our act together and using part of our Scottish Government grant and the expertise of our new Trustee Scott to get a web site up and running-SOON!
So we may not use the blog for while as we see how the website goes. Thanks for your interest. The work goes on!

2019 - THE FIRST 8 MONTHS.

In the first 3 months of the year we completed work on our first Capacity Building programme. The report on this was submitted to our funders, the Scottish Government, in April. The new ZTA Strategic Plan 2018-2022 was completed and launched in February 2019. It sets out our aims and direction for the next 4 years.  It is the culmination of all our capacity building work in 2018-19 and was produced thanks to our grant funding from the Scottish Government.

Liz Hall and Simon Willoughby-Booth made a visit to Zambia,  in April/May 2019. Liz delivered a very successful workshop for teachers, psychologists and others who work with children. The training workshops were on trauma recovery approaches for children and young people and were held at UTH. Twenty two people completed the training and, based on the very positive feedback we received, this may be a future strand of work for ZTA. Liz's visit was funded in part by MAITS,  (Multi Agency International Training and Support). Simon was able to with some key  people in Zambia and with the Zambian trainers group, ZART,  to support and plan the next phase of the group's development.

We held our AGM on 28th May and said goodbye to Colin Boxer, who is stepping down after 2 years as a trustee. His input has been invaluable and he has helped to guide ZTA through a period of development and growth. Two new trustees have joined the Board - Scott Renton and Rachel Bruce and Lesley Hill has re-joined the board. We are looking forward to working with them. Our trustees are now Joanna Pearce, Vera Steele, Simon Willoughby-Booth, Scott, Rachel and Lesley. Joanna gave the Chair's report on our work over the last year and our successful application for a second Capacity Building grant from the Scottish Government for 2019/20.

Margarate Munakampe, presented a poster titled "The Zambia Therapeutic Art Course: Improving Mental health in Zambia" at the Zambia Quality Improvement Conference, held in Lusaka from 4-6 June. Margarate is our link person with SCHEME at University of Zambia. Kestone Lyambai, one of the ZART trainers and a lecturer at UNZA, was also able to attend the poster session and the conference. This was the first time we have been represented at this conference and we are delighted to get wider recognition for our work.

Joanna presented ZTA's work at the International Art Therapy Practice/Research Conference, 11-13 July in London, England. She was part of a joint presentation, Art Therapy in Africa: Now and Next, with four other presenters who described very varied approaches to developing work in sub-Saharan Africa. The panel session was well attended and was our first opportunity to present the work in Zambia to an international audience of art therapists.

We began this year's Capacity Building work during the visit to Zambia in April, focussing on developing training projects for the ZART trainers in response to their requests and on developing the fundraising and digital resources of the charity in Scotland. We have established links with Challenges Worldwide who are a social enterprise training NGO, based in Lusaka, and with the Psychology Association of Zambia. We plan to set up training packages with their involvement.

Joanna will be making the next visit to Zambia and will be there from 29th August to 30th September. She will taking forward the training projects, linking to a wide range of key Zambian people and organisations and setting up a new Therapeutic Art training in Livingstone. It will be a very busy month and we have lots to do to achieve our aims in this year's capacity building work!