Highlighting Community Changemakers - Robson Chalwa

Briefly introduce yourself

My name is Robson Chalwa a community activist from Zambia. I am a co- founder of Eagles of Change community based NGO. I hold a degree in Political Science with Public Administration from the University of Zambia.

Why did you choose to become a community activist?

I desire to see a better society. I saw many problems in my community and felt responsibility to address some of them. I realised that change starts with me, if there was someone to solve some of the problems in the community that person should be me, and this is what inspired me and my colleagues to form Eagles of Change.

What kind of community work are you involved in?

Through Eagles of Change I help the fight against drug and substance abuse, HIV/AIDs and Child marriage using sport as a tool for social change. We target children and youths. Currently, we have 70 boys in football and 20 girls taking part in netball which is integrated with educational activities. Beside sport, we manage anti- drug abuse clubs in 9 government schools within our catchment area.

What inspires your work?

The strong desire to bring positive change in the community has been the driving force. Everyone in my team is passionate and love what they do, this helps us to move forward despite facing some challenges. The positive response we are getting from the community and the people we are helping is very impressing and has played a significant role for us to continue pressing forward

Anti Drug Abuse Club

Are there some success stories that you can share from your work?

We have recorded a number of successes in our project. We started with only 10 boys participating in sports activities in 2018, now the number has increased to 70. In addition, we introduced netball and currently 20 girls are taking part in the sport. Last year in August 2019, our football team participated in the annual children football festival for one week. Our boys came out as the most disciplined and fairest team players from the 244 teams that took part in the tournament. This shows that transformation in behaviour is taking place in our children.

When the school project started, we only had 2 anti-drug abuse clubs, but now we manage 9 clubs in government schools. In addition to this, in 2019 the organisation managed to partner with two government institutions, Drug Enforcement Commission in the fight against drug abuse and Ministry of Gender in the fight against child marriage.

Football Training

Any key lessons that you’ve learnt throughout your community work?

Teamwork has helped us bring different stakeholders on board. I realised that if people own the project it is easy to bring change in the community. Always keeping the vision in mind helps not to lose focus and to divert from the main objective. Passion and persistence is also key to remain focussed in times of crisis and challenges.

What are the main challenges that you encounter?

Financial constraints are the main challenge. The project has been running for 2 years without funding, just contributions from the members which is not that effective. Lack of sport kit for football and netball has also affected the work. With the large number of children participating in sport, we only have 3 balls. Due to high demand for our services in the community, there is insufficient human resource. The organisation has done so much work, but it has gone unnoticed due to lack of exposure.

Netball Training

How can other youth interested in being active in their communities start?

Youths need to understand that they are powerful and can bring the change they desire if they decide to talk action. No need to wait for tomorrow to take action because the future is now. The best way to be certain about the future is to start creating it. The first step is to identify a problem which they feel passionate about and are willing to give their time to address the problem. Next is to identify other youths who are also passionate on the same problem to collaborate for the same noble cause.

What do you think is the most important SDG and why?

Quality education is the most powerful goal for sustainable development. It provides equal access to boys and girls to complete at primary and secondary schools. I argue that it could be difficult to achieve other sustainable development goals like health and wellbeing, to get rid of poverty among others if people are ignorant. That is why there is a big gap in terms of wealth distribution between the rich and the poor. In most cases rich countries have more educated people compared to poor countries

Any final remarks?

The future is in our hands. The decisions we make today, how we spend our time and resources determines how our future will be. Nothing changes unless we change. Now is the best time to take action. ' Dare to Think, Dare to Act, the Future is Now'

Contact details:

Mob: +260976547939

email: chalwaroby92@gmail.com