MY EXPERIENCE IN NORWAY

Under the twinning agreement between Mbala Minicipal Council in Zambia and Eid Kommune in Norway, EMBLA Mbala is one of the Major Key Stakeholder.
I was one of the EMBLA Mbala Women who had chance to visit Norway so as to go and experience, learn and share ideas with our Co-operating Partner the Norwegian EMBLA Women.

Hard work, Co-operation, Co-ordination and Volunteerism are the key elements I learnt as important tools which our fellow Norwegian EMBLA Women had used to reach the standards they have reached and these key elements I have continued to share with my fellow women so that we coud map our way forvard for we had only ourselves to make a difference and be able to contribute to society meaningfully.

It was really an honour and an experience of a life time to have had such an opportunity to travel and be able to see how people live in Norway and how much they had done in terms of development.  I cold not hide the joy of having been associated with the Norwegian EMBLA Women and that most importantly, the trip was an eye opener on my part for better understanding of our co-operation partners way of life.  It was actualle learning through travelling.

Economically, the people of Eid have access to Basic needs at Family Level, District and Country as a whole.  The people of Eid are very hard working community and from the households we visited for instance, they did other activities like keeping cattle and sheeps besides being a working slass.  Individual families visited took care of these animals before reporting for work and what was so interesting was that we even withnessed a girl child milking the cow.  Skills were being taught at household level.

We liked and appreciated the way local government is organized and run.  There is indeed great support on the part of government and hence council policics or plans are timely and effectively implemented there by efficiently taking care of the local community needs.  And in terms of human development, everyone has access to education and workers are motivated.

Like in the case in our local government system, councillors are the policy makers while the implementation part is left to council employees.

We have no Woman Councillor in Mbala Municipal Council.  Women have not come out to contest as councillors at local level but we have a few Women Members of Parliament.

The Norwegian environment is very well looked after and with maximum utilization of Natural resources and land.  And Xocially, Norwgioand are sociable and freiendly as Zambians.  And besides, we were taken trough many exciting, educative and historical sites.
A moment of silence was observed after the September 11, 2001 Bombing of the Pentagon in New York, this was a very saddening moment and thanks to Norwegian EMBLA Women for their peace mission.

Currently in Zambia, there is low participation in higher education and employment amongst women thus depriving the society the abilities, qualities, energy and skills of capable individuals.  This is an unhealthy situation in our comtemporary society wehere issues of gender balancing are emphasized.

We have very much welcomed the twinning arrangement for we have already so for learnt quite a lot freom our co-operation an indeed we have moved som steps in terms of human development as a result of exchange of information and visits an we look forward to a lot of communication.

Isabel N. Kabulembe – EMBLA Mbala – Treasurer