An ongoing teen pregnancy crisis along the shores of Lake Tanganyika in Zambia has gotten the attention of the OM team. As a result, Johanna*, worked with other women in Mpulungu, a town in the northern province of Zambia, to set up a self-help group for girls.
The self-help group meets every day to do Discovery Bible Study (DBS), learn helpful life skills and support one another. Johanna wanted the girls to do some sort of physical activity to increase the sense of community, fun and recreation in the group. She asked Golden, OM’s self-help group coordinator at Lake Tanganyika, if she could have a soccer ball — and that took the self-help group to a new level. After discussing Scripture, the girls get to connect and play soccer together.
The aim of Johanna’s self-help group has been to reduce the number of early marriages in the community, and through their Bible study and soccer club — which requires discipline and a significant time commitment — our team members are seeing changes in the lives of the participants.
“Self-help groups are one of the ministries of OM at Lake Tanganyika that we are using to reach out to the most vulnerable women in the villages around the shore,” Golden said. “We have seen transformation happening in the villages around the Lake through self-help groups.”
Johanna’s soccer club quickly thrived, winning the Independent Cup for soccer in their community. Two players were even invited to play for a higher-level team in the province!
Johanna is one of 10 self-help group facilitators, leading 10 groups of between 12 and 20 young women each. There were 138 g
roups running in the region as of summer 2024.
Through the self-help approach, our team is finding ways to positively inspire change in the Lake Tanga
nyika area and the surrounding communities, transforming women from vulnerable to equally valued and
developing them into respected leaders.
These changes are not just affecting individual people; they’re being seen in the community at large. The women in our groups have also turned their attention to larger issues, such as finding solutions for clean water in their villages and supporting new transportation infrastructure, such as a cross-border bridge between Zambia and Tanzania.
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*Name changed for security reasons.
