Dressed for success
With one sewing machine and a lot of determination Tamara Kaira has been able to give a refuge to children affected by HIV and AIDS, writes Beccy Beard.
When you talk to Zambian Tamara Kaira you understand the meaning of "driven". She speaks with steady eyes and a voice of conviction.
Tamara Kaira
What motivates her was revealed during the Training in Mission (TIM) programme in 2002. Participants in the annual CWM youth training programme are each given a small living allowance to cover such costs as clothes, bus fares and treats.
Kaira used to keep a portion of it to one side. At the back of her mind were the children in her hometown Lusaka.
"A lot of children have no parents," Kaira says. "Most of them are kept by aunties and are not looked after well. Sometimes they go to school hungry.
"Some families keep a lot of orphans. They keep maybe four or five dependents and it's hard for them to maintain them, going to school, even looking after their own kids. So it becomes a problem for those dependents. Most of the dependents are the ones with a lot of problems. Most of them don't go to school they just stay home."
Kaira used the money she saved during TIM to buy a sewing machine and went into business as a dressmaker. With her income and help from women volunteers she has set up the equivalent of an orphanage. She welcomes children to stay at her home if they have troubles at home or are homeless.
In September she had around 40 staying with her in her two-roomed house.
Kaira organises games for them as a distraction. She provides meals when she has money. Many of them cannot afford school uniforms so she makes them for free or buys them one. She has bought them schoolbooks and given them extra tutoring in English. She may take them back to school.
Help: Children who came to Tamara Kaira for shelter or refuge.
"I just do what I can," says Kaira. "Sometimes you see kids out of their homes at night. I bring them clothes and then deal with them. I just help them, giving them meals together and then staying with them until I negotiate with their parents or guardians. After, if the parents are willing, they take them back. Then if I find other parents that are willing to keep them, they do."
Kaira also organises children's conferences on issues such as child abuse, HIV and AIDS and on God.
Speakers are police; nurses and doctors; and ministers, respectively. She teaches at the Girls' and Boys' Brigade and Sunday school at Matero Presbyterian Church in Lusaka.
Girls who started to learn from her from the ages of seven have grown up to be her helpers; taking offerings at conferences, doing prayers or ushering; or visiting grieving families.
Says Kaira: "Children never remain at the same level. If you help them they will grow like these and help in the mission."