• The 110-year-old Miliya Chimanga flanked by Salvation Army’s Major Harriet Mwiiga and Major Adeck Mwiinga in her room at Mitanga Home for the Aged.

By HUMPHREY NKONDE  –

The growing number of cases of Gender-based Violence (GBV) is one of the reasons the Salvation Army’s Mitanda Home for the Aged in Ndola took custody of a 70-year-old victim.
Men would break into the house of the old woman in Ndola’s Twapia Township and serially rape her.
The grave social problem caught the attention of Ndola District Commissioner(DC) Rebby Chanda.
Mr Chanda consulted administrators of old people’s sanctuary located on the quadrant that has been formed by the Ndola-Kitwe Road, Kwacha and Kabompo roads near Ndola Central Hospital to take care of the old woman.
Social problems did not start from serial rapes as the old woman had been in prison following an accusation that she had killed her husband who was found dead in their matrimonial house.
Whilst in prison, she was taken to Chainama Hospital before she was transferred to Ndola’s Kansenshi Prison.
However, the High Court was not furnished with sufficient evidence regarding the murder charge that was slapped on her by the police, leading to an acquittal.
She was set free and only to be a victim of another social problem, property grabbing, because her matrimonial house had already been sold before she came out of prison.
“They not only sold the house, but also my kitchen utensils,” the old woman lamented.
The 70-year-old woman became a resident at the sanctuary for the aged on February 5, 2015, making her a new entrant at the Salvation Army-administered institution.
Meanwhile, a truck driver who originates from Mansa has been rendered unemployed and confined to a wheel chair after he lost a leg following a road traffic accident.
With a figment of imagination, another old man thinks he owns Mitanda Home for the Aged, but the reality is that he was a victim of unlawful property transfer in which his step-children are alleged to have sold his farm which he previously owned.
Thinking that he was still at his farm, the old man pointed at the administrators of the old people’s home and said:  “These are my workers.”
A major consideration in admitting candidates at the sanctuary is advancement in age, going by the age range of 60 to 110.
However, rules were relaxed for a 26-year-old youth who suffers from epilepsy.
Resulting from his health problem, he has occasional bouts of violence that are punctuated by seizures of extreme calmness.
During Zambian Insight Media Group’s field study, he was under blankets around 10.00 hours while old women were seated outside the boarding houses.
Such traits could be at variance with family norms, leading to the isolation of such an individual, the result being custody by the Salvation Army.
It has been taken for granted that most of the geriatric social problems occur in families facing poverty or lack of education, but sometimes causes of neglect for the aged are as a result of conflicts among the elite in middle and upper classes.
For instance, the 110-year-old Miliya Chimanga was hounded out of her son’s house by her daughter-in-law on suspicion that she practiced witchcraft.
The young woman is said to have capitalised on the absence of her husband, took Ms Chimanga out of the matrimonial house and dumped her outside the old people’s home.
By then, two children that the young woman had with her husband had died, with the suspicion of the deaths falling on Ms Chimanga.
The home’s oldest senior citizen turned 100 in 2005 whilst she was in the hands of the Salvation Army, with administrators saying that in spite of her advanced age she rarely falls sick.
Ms Chimanga was found with another elderly woman, Rita Chipoya, aged 67, a freedom fighter and widow of one-time mayor of Ndola Moses Chipoya.
Another social problem involving the upper classes of society is that of a white couple from South Africa in which the man switched races and decided to marry a black Zambian woman.
Loss of marriage made the white woman become a candidate at the home for the old people whose combination cuts across race, religion, sex, tribe, political affiliation, social class and disability.
Mitanda Home for the Aged was established by the British colonial government in 1948 for Europeans retirees from the government, mines and private sector.
Initially known as Roshaven, its name was changed to Mitanda or transit point in English after Northern Rhodesia (now Zambia) gained independence from Britain in 1964.
It fell under the office of the provincial social welfare in April 1979 and eventually the district social welfare office in 1992.
The Salvation Army took over overall administration of the home in January 1995 after the regime of the late second President Frederick Chiluba’s government sold government pool and council houses to sitting tenants.
It is currently under the administration of Major Adeck Mwiinga as acting centre manager, his wife Major Harriet Mwiinga who is director of special services and Kennedy Tandeo, an accountant.
In 1995 people could not understand why the government of President Chiluba, one of the top ranking government officials to have visited the home, could offer it to the Salvation Army at   K1, 000 when the value of its properties was high.
“The Salvation Army spent a lot of money to renovate the old buildings,” was the explanation from the acting centre manager.
And while there was jubilation when the Zambia Nation Team won the Africa Cup of Nations (AFCON) in 2012, it is not known by many that players went for prayers at the habitat for the aged before the continent’s major football showpiece.
“Football Association of Zambia president Kalusha Bwalya was here with the players, “ Major Mwiinga (male) explained. “He promised to come back. We need him here again.”
Being a colonial facility, the home for the aged has high maintenance costs, requiring re-workings on the leaking and collapsing roofs, the old woodwork supporting the roofs and old plumbing pipes that continue to burst.
To raise funds to cover running costs, part of the property has been turned into commercial residential boarding facilities.
Rentals generate K40, 000 per month, with a wage bill for administrators, gardener, security guard, care givers and kitchen workers standing at K 17, 000.
There is also a monthly bill of K 5, 500 for electricity used for lighting, warming water for the aged and running of the laundry machine and another K 5, 500 in water bills, not mentioning food and medical expenses.
Commercialisation of part of the property has its own problems because rebates on both electricity and water are difficult to justify from consolidate bills that extend to the income generating entity.
Mr Tandeo, the accountant, explained that there were plans to install pre-paid meters on the commercial side for the tenants to pay for what they use.
He said the Zambia Electricity Supply Corporation (ZESCO) has asked for K 21, 000 for installation of pre-paid meters.
Once the electricity billing systems are separated, the institution can ask for rebates on electricity that would be consumed by the aged, a pure social welfare service.
Another aspect is that contemporary social welfare services are inclusive by accommodating the physically handicapped when the initial plan was to offer sanctuary to able-bodied European retirees.
That state of affairs means that toilets need to be modified to be user-friendly for those on wheel chairs in line with Part V of The Persons with Disabilities Act No.6 of 2012, a domestication of the United Nations Conventions on Rights of Persons with Disabilities.
To cover running costs, the institution is considering another business plan to turn the portion facing Kwacha Road to have a filling station and mini mart.
The project’s sponsor is eager to donate part of the profits towards the welfare of the aged and possibly reduce taxable income through corporate social responsibility.
That line of business is still under consideration by the Zambia Environmental Management Agency (ZEMA) in terms of environmental impact or mitigation.
Through corporate social responsibility some companies and farms donate foodstuffs to feed the aged while Asians  and other non-Africans are major individuals who render help to the communal home.
Meager grants from government and the Salvation Army are not enough to manage the institution, which can run efficiently through donations from individuals, companies, churches, non-governmental organisations(NGOs) and other well-wishers.-Zambian Insight Feature Syndication