A RETURN visit to Zambia more than three decades after they left, lead a Cromhall couple Roy and Ann Greenhalgh to suggest the village link with an African community. Now, just months after the launch of the link, Cromhall is helping a band of retired Zambians provide a better future for themselves. Gazette feature writer KIRSTY RAMSDEN met residents of Cromhall to find out more about the community venture.

AS a young married couple, Roy and Ann Greenhalgh travelled to Africa to teach for two years in Zambia.

They had had no contact with the country since they left, so when they were planning a holiday in South Africa, their daughter suggested combining a visit to Zambia.

The couple were warned the country had changed and it was never wise to go back, so arranged a swift two-day trip. They need not have worried.

Mrs Greenhalgh said: "Stepping foot on Zambian soil again felt excellent. "Going back to where we had taught was lovely. The school was still there but had grown in size.

"The houses we had lived in were still there and looked very much the same. "It was lovely and were welcomed as if we had never been away." However, with a life expectancy of just 37 years in Zambia, there were no people still around who remembered them.

Prior to the visit Mr and Mrs Greenhalgh were aware Cromhall's parish church, St Andrew's, had been looking to set up a link with a Third World parish.

With this in mind, the couple met two members of the church community of Chongwe, which was just five miles from where they had taught in Zambia. The church members, Zambians Joyce and Brown Banda, had taught but were now retired.

Mrs Banda wanted to train as a lay reader - Chongwe has no Anglican church building and there is no priest to take services at the two house churches.

On their return to British soil Mr and Mrs Greenhalgh gave a presentation at the annual parochial church council meeting of St Andrew's.

And at Easter this year a link was forged between St Andrew's and the community of Chongwe.

The original aim of the link was to fund Mrs Banda's training _ this money has been donated by the congregation of St Andrew's.

The Chongwe community also asked the Cromhall link to help fund the building of a church.

Mr and Mrs Greenhalgh made a return visit to Zambia in May to see for themselves the most pressing needs of the community and quickly realised this was not the building of a church.

They visited Kanakantapa, a resettlement area for retired Zambians - Mr and Mrs Banda have a farm at Kanakantapa.

Rather than a pension, an area of land is provided where the retired Zambian is expected to build his or her own house and make a living by farming.

There is no water except from rivers and few have electricity - it only rains for three months a year.

Two of the farms are by rivers, the remaining farms could be up to 2km from water.

Mrs Greenhalgh explained many were retired civil servants or business people and few had farming experience.

In a country where the average life expectancy is just 37, people can retire from 35 upwards.

Mrs Greenhalgh said: "We went round a lot of homes and found out the problems. "We decided they needed water before a church."

The church in Cromhall employed the services of an expert, Mike Muleba, who has been working with groups such as these for 11 years, encouraging and teaching basic skills.

The Kanakantapa community is now to embark on a chicken project supported by the link, which has developed to involve the wider Cromhall community including the chapel, school, shop and WI.

The Zambian community has been encouraged to work together and the chicken project is a scheme to involve and help everyone.

The farmers will form a co-operative and produce poultry for the Lusaka market. A thousand day-old chicks will be bought and reared by the Kanakantapa residents until they are two months old.

Manure from the chickens will provide fertiliser for the farms.

Profits from this venture will go towards the installation of a borehole providing water for four farms.

Cromhall resident Doug Collett explained: "It is getting them together to work as a community."

The Cromhall link members were rather shocked when they learned the chicken project would cost £1,300.

However, the South Gloucestershire village has managed to raise the funds - and with change.

The link members have held chicken coffee mornings and several villagers have made jam to sell at the village shop and events.

Jam-maker Mrs Greenhalgh explained selling the preserves was not necessarily meant to be a major fund-raiser for the project but to raise its profile. And this certainly worked.

The scheme has received donations of £50, £100 and £200 - as well as a rather sweet-tasting £300 from jam sales.

As well as the chicken project, the Cromhall's primary school has donated £25 to the school in Chongwe and £127 raised at the church harvest service is going to the clinic.

Mr Collett has also helped raise a further £725 towards a water pump for Kanakantapa.

He said: "At Ann and Roy's presentation I was struck by the life expectancy of 37."

He was about to celebrate his 60th birthday - fit, well and still working. He invited those celebrating his birthday at a party to give donations to the link rather than gifts and this raised a staggering £725 for a water pump.

Mr Collett's wife, Peggy, said: "We are so grateful to the people who gave money."

Not content with launching the chicken project and buying a water pump, Cromhall is about to embark on a scheme to help the clinic in Chongwe.

When Mr and Mrs Greenhalgh visited the clinic it did not have running water, although they believe it does now.

Mrs Greenhalgh said: "It was very poorly equipped - all the instruments were old and rusty."

There was no equipment to measure blood pressure or scales. There was no x-ray. Patients had to pay for much of their drugs and treatment.

"Relatives of patients had to come in to feed and care for them," explained Mrs Greenhalgh.

There was no separate operating theatre so operations were performed on the ward.

The 166,000 residents of Chongwe have just one doctor.

Mrs Greenhalgh asked the clinic for a wish list and this included simple items such as thermometers and scales to a 50-bed hospital.

Chongwe's doctor also asked for a second hand x-ray machine which Cromhall residents were shocked to discover would cost £2,000. "Although we haven't dismissed it," explained Mr Collett.

However, added Mrs Greenhalgh, the clinic needed drugs to give pregnant women to ensure their babies were not born HIV.

The link is embarking on a programme to raise funds to buy these drugs. She said: "For a small amount you can save a lot of lives."

HIV/AIDS is wiping out a generation in Zambia leaving grandparents to care for as many as 30 grandchildren, said Mrs Greenhalgh.

Roy and Ann Greenhalgh plan to return to Zambia in the spring and this time will be taking fellow Cromhall villagers Doug and Peggy Collett. Mrs Collett said: "It is difficult to imagine the situation when you haven't been there."

If you want to help the Chongwe link call 01454 294200.

Pictured: The Zambian farm which will host the chicken project funded by villagers of Cromhall.