Eden Farm’s Story

Eden Farm, formally owned by Ben and Brenda Pitout, was a project set up to train local Zambians in farm management and the development of self sufficiency skills. In 2002, a small group led by Nathanael Edwards (Life Support Director) travelled over to Zambia from the UK to assist the Pitouts in the building of a dam that would supply the farm with water.

Following the retirement of Ben and Brenda, the farm was donated to Nathanael for the purposes of the Eden Farm project. In 2007, Nathanael Edwards along with like minded friends established Life Support with a vision to support orphans, widows and young adults.  In the short term Life Support work alongside individuals who work with the vulnerable with a view to empowering them to live independently in the long term.

The Vision

Our vision is a Children’s Village with a loving, hopeful atmosphere where children are brought up knowing they are precious and not just another sad statistic. Each child will live in a family of 8 children with one widow ‘Mother’ to look after them. There will be a school and a clinic on the land for the training and well-being of the children. Our plan is that Eden Farm Children’s Village will be completely financially self sufficient. The farm will produce fruit, veg, eggs, dairy, fish and meat for the whole farm community as well as selling produce to local markets and supermarkets. This will subsidise the expense of the workers on the farm.

Nurture Zambia

Nurture Zambia is our project to help vulnerable women in the townships near to Eden Farm. We run the Nurture program in groups of up to 20 women at a time. The project aims to give these women the training to be able to manage their homes and to train them in skills that will help them to climb out of poverty. We plan to start different micro enterprises to create employment for some of the women. Alongside the micro enterprises we will be giving these women training in various skills such as knitting and tailoring. We will also be running discipleship programs for these women to help them overcome past traumas.

Current tasks

At the moment we are focused on bringing the farm back to full working order; providing housing for key workers, restoring the irrigation system and building a lodge for volunteers. In 2010 we completed work on the first children’s home. Building work will continue until eight homes (our first cluster of homes) is complete.

Long Term

On completion of the first cluster we will commence work on our school and community centre. Long term there is potential to build 4 clusters of homes which could house up to 252 children and 32 house mothers. The farm has sufficient land to provide playing fields for the children as well as large gardens to be enjoyed by the farm community. Our long term goal is to create a self sufficient project where the whole village is fed and supported by the farm.