Gipa Marketing Services

23/12/2025

23/12/2025

23/12/2025

☑️ A GLANCE AT MY ACADEMIC AND PROFESSIONAL JOURNEY

Part 2:

Following my second exclusion from the University of Zambia, I stayed home for two years during which I attempted several endeavours. First, I enrolled for an accounting course (AAT) for which I attended tuitions twice a week in the evening at Lusaka Private High School near COMESA Market. However, after attending classes for three weeks, I quit on account of two reasons:

(a) I found the accounting concept of "double entry" (credit vs debit) confusing.

(b) The class was too small for my comfort. Apart from me, there were only two other students whose accounting "competence and understanding" appeared much worse than mine!

The thought of continuing with the accounting course gave me goose pimples! I could literally see another looming academic fiasco, which my mind was obviously not ready to handle!

Admittedly, I felt frustrated with any further academic pursuit. The fear of failure overwhelmed me. I needed to find something else to keep me occupied, and earn me an income. Probably, that would restore my confidence and repair my damaged self-esteem. I shared my thoughts with a few close friends.

In this regard, a former classmate at Hillcrest, who was working as an accountant after obtaining a Zambia Diploma in Accountancy (ZDA), arranged an inrerview for me for a clerical job at Unifinance Bureau de Change located on Cairo Road in Lusaka. Unfortunately, I was unsuccessful. One interview question that threw me off-balance was, "With the 4 A-levels that you possess from UNZA, do you believe that you are better than an ordinary Grade 12 in relation to the performance of the job we are interviewing you for?"

I have never felt so stupid and so dull in my life. To start with, the job content was totally unknown to me. The job was not publicly advertised for me to appreciate its actual tasks or key result areas. My short written application letter was on the basis of non-detailed verbal information shared by my former classmate.

Now, my mind "told" me that the employment "door" was shut because I didn't have any specific pre-job training or qualification.

What next?

I decided to venture into the sale of "game meat!" There was a strong rumour that I could buy some from Nyawa Chiefdom in Zimba District for resale in Lusaka. To raise my start-up capital, I performed a few menial jobs in the neighbourhood. Owing to my humble disposition, it was easy for the neighbours to hire me to clean their surroundings, dig pits or slash their overgrown grass.

Upon arrival in Nyawa, I was welcomed and accommodated by a family that once lived in Kaunda Square (Lusaka) and relocated to their village after retirement from formal employment. They were not expecting me, but I just showed up. At the time, there were no mobile phones.

When I explained my mission, the male head of the host family responded that, "You needed to have brought with you some bullets. Here, they are in short supply. In the absence of that, it will take long for hunters to source bullets and go into the bush to slaughter impalas."

Indeed, I stayed for a complete month without success. Then, one evening, I saw my mother suddenly arrive, looking tired, weak and dehydrated. My heart broke! She had travelled to follow up on me, moving from one village to another until she found me. She and the rest of the family back home were worried sick about my welfare. They didn't know what was happening with or to me. They wondered whether I was still alive!

The next morning, my mother and I travelled back to Lusaka. Once again, I had failed; this time, in my entrepreneurial endeavour!



JK.

23/12/2025

23/12/2025

21/12/2025

No Matter How Brilliant Your Child Is, If You Are Poor - He/She Might Never Amount To Much!
Truth: your poverty places a natural limit on what your child will become. This is not nice to hear, but study after study has revealed that usually the best available for brilliant kids from poor families is to work for the brilliant kids from rich families. My friend, never ever defend poverty.
I quote "Kids born into the richest 1% of society are 10 times more likely to be inventors than those born into the bottom 50% and this is having a big effect on innovation." (John Van Reenen, MIT Sloan)
Now read the quote again slowly.
This isn’t about intelligence. It’s not about school grades. It’s about exposure, access, and environment. In other words, 'poverty silences genius'.
Let’s bring this home to Africa.
1. You Can’t Invent What You’ve Never Seen
You want your child to become the next Elon Musk? How? When your home has:
- No WiFi.
- No books except textbooks.
- No Lego, no code, no telescope, no microscope, not even basic tools to take things apart and rebuild them.
They’re growing up in a world where survival, not invention, is the daily prayer. Children of the poor learn survival strategies. Meanwhile, the children of the 1% are spending their holidays in Dubai tech expos, doing coding bootcamps at age 9, and have mentors who are venture capitalists and CEOs. Genius is not always born, it's intentionally created.
2. Poor Kids Don’t Get Permission to Tinker
My elder brother struggled with maths, but he always loved dismantling watches and radios to see what's inside. He was severally beaten until he stopped. That was us in the township, but in the suburb, a child who breaks a drone is taken to a robotics camp.
So innovation becomes a class privilege not because of ability, but because one child’s curiosity is punished, and another’s is protected.
3. You Can't Innovate Under Stress
Poverty is a full-time job.
If your child is walking 4km to school with torn shoes and nothing for lunch, you expect them to invent what?
Innovation requires:
- Time to think
- Safe spaces to test and fail
- Encouragement to explore
If you can't afford your child a quite space at home, your child might grow up not knowing what they are capable of doing.
4. This Is Why Africa Isn’t Inventing at Scale
Yes, we’re hardworking. Yes, we’re spiritual. Yes, we have “potential.”
But potential without platforms is like seeds on concrete. Nothing grows.
And then we wonder why we’re importing fuel, phones, cars, tractors, vaccines, software, and even chicken pieces?
Because the kids who could invent all that are busy hustling for school fees and surviving under adults who tell them, 'you don't eat books, grow up'.
Here is what I suggest?
1. Expose Early
Get your child to familiarize yourself with a computer, see a lab, visit a factory, and attend an expo before age 10. I am taking my son to China for that.
2. Fund Curiosity
Not just education. Curiosity. Buy them a screwdriver set. Get them a science toy. Let them ruin the TV remote if it helps them figure out how circuits work. Ask them to find out how things work.
3. Celebrate problem solving.
Don’t just celebrate the child who passes exams. Celebrate the one who fixes things, builds things, questions things.
4. Normalize Invention in Black Spaces
Tech is not just for “wyts” or the diaspora. Inventing is not foreign. Our ancestors were engineers. We built kingdoms. Look at the Great Zimbabwe and the pyramids. We must now build futures.
In conclusion, until African parents start raising inventors, our children will keep buying what other people’s children built with the very money we sweat for.

21/12/2025

23-year-old Ivwananji Nawila from Luanshya has earned Russia’s highest academic honour — the Red Degree — after scoring straight distinctions for four years at Kuban State Agrarian University.

She didn’t just pass… she made history:
• First African woman in her faculty to earn a Red Degree
• First African student in her faculty to receive a Medal of Honour
• Only medal recipient in her entire agronomy class
• Former President of Foreign Students in Agronomy & Ecology

Studying under HELSB sponsorship and raised by her grandmother, whom she credits for everything, Ivwananji also represented all foreign agriculture students in Russia at the country’s largest agriculture forum — speaking directly to Russia’s Minister of Agriculture about Zambia’s future.

Now she’s heading home with one mission:
“I want to become the blueprint for success in Zambian agriculture.” 🌾🇿🇲

20/12/2025

20/12/2025

ZNS partners with Egypt to improve cattle breeding, food security

THE Zambia National Service (ZNS) has partnered with Egypt to improve cattle breeding, control animal diseases and increase livestock production in the country.

https://www.facebook.com/share/p/14XnuFXkQcd/?mibextid=wwXIfr

The partnership is with Egypt’s Agriculture Research Centre and is expected to help Zambia strengthen food security in the long term.

ZNS Commander Lieutenant General Maliti Solochi announced the development last night during the ZNS Senior Officers’ Annual Ball held at the Nathan Mulenga Banquet Hall in Chamba Valley.

Lt Gen Solochi said the agreement will allow ZNS to improve local cattle breeds, increase access to vaccines for common animal diseases and carry out joint training and research with Egyptian experts.

He said the partnership will help ZNS move from ordinary livestock farming to modern, science based production that will benefit the country for many years.

The Egypt deal follows ZNS’s expansion of ranches and aquaculture service centres across the country after an agreement signed in October 2025 between the Ministry of Defence and the Ministry of Fisheries and Livestock.

ZNS has already opened four ranches and three aquaculture service centres and one of them is Mbesuma Ranch in Chinsali, which has been restocked with more than 950 cattle.

The ranch is expected to grow to 5,000 cattle by 2026 and achieve disease-free status by 2027.

Another large ranch in Lunte district is being prepared for restocking and is expected to hold up to 40,000 cattle in the future.

Other facilities include ranches in Kalumbila and Masaiti, as well as aquaculture centres in Samfya, Mushindamo and Kasempa.

Lt Gen Solochi said ZNS plans to have at least five large ranches by 2031, each with about 10,000 cattle and meeting international animal health standards.

This, he said, could help Zambia enter regional and international beef markets.

He added that the projects will also benefit nearby communities through jobs, skills training and access to better and affordable livestock.

Apart from livestock, ZNS has also made progress in crop production.

In 2025, the Service planted 2,777 hectares of crops despite difficult weather conditions.

Maize production reached 7,794.6 metric tonnes, while wheat production stood at 2,872 metric tonnes.

Lt Gen Solochi said ZNS has prepared more land and plans to expand crop production to 4,442 hectares in the 2025/2026 farming season.

In fisheries, ZNS increased fish production at its Chipepo project by expanding fish cages from 10 to 54, raising the number of fish from 150,000 to over 810,000.

ZNS has also carried out major infrastructure works across the country, including the rehabilitation of more than 861 kilometres of feeder roads, construction and repair of dams, building of bridges and the start of major road projects. Preparations are also underway for the Nakonde Airport project.

Through its Builders Brigade, ZNS has built public facilities such as a modern house for the Chief Justice, trading places, bus stations and ablution blocks at institutions including the University of Zambia and Evelyn Hone College.

“Our role goes beyond food production. We are also supporting national development through infrastructure and skills training,” he said.

As the country moves closer to the 2026 general elections, he urged ZNS officers and personnel to remain disciplined, professional and politically neutral.

By Catherine P**e

Kalemba, December 20, 2025

20/12/2025