How it all started

One of the 13 children from the Bouma family (Nijlân, Friesland) left for Zambia in 1993 as a missionary / priest. This son, Johannes Bouma (1930), was educated at the small seminar of the Congregation of Missionaries of Marianhill in Arcen, North Limburg. He worked in South Africa for almost 25 years before moving to Zambia. In 2006, four brothers of Johannes came to Zambia to build the Home Based Care Regina House for the Kaoma community, and this is how ‘Bouwen met Bouma’s’ was initiated! In 2016 Johannes left Zambia to permanently live in the Netherlands (Arcen) again, because of his health. We continued!

What do we do?

We are building, literally and figuratively, the future of Zambia. The projects that we set up, finance and help to implement are mostly aimed at education. A major problem in Zambia is the poor quality of education, unsafe classrooms and overcrowded classes. By building and maintaining classrooms, we ensure that more children can go to school, teachers are motivated to teach children and children can receive safe education.

Since 2006, over 20 builders have left for Zambia to help with construction work. Our focus is more and more on teaching construction workers so that they can do more and more themselves, without our physical help. That is why in 2019 we found the Kaoma Training Institute – which was closed due to a lack of students – willing to reopen if we provided at least 10 students. We succeeded in this: we found 17 students (of which 7 women) that are currently following a 2-year carpenter training.

Our goal

Our goal is to provide financial and physical support to suitable projects in Zambia. To make these projects possible, we raise money, set up campaigns and recruit donors and volunteers.

We are a small foundation that intends to stay small. Interesting fact; of every euro that we receive, 96 cents are spend in Zambia!