Impact Plus: Equipping Youth with Practical Skills for the Future
By Njavwa Simukoko, Communications Specialist, Zambia
Adolescents in Chama, like many rural communities across Zambia, face limited opportunities to develop practical skills, explore creativity, or grow into leadership outside the classroom. Without structured spaces for mentorship and peer development, many young people graduate with academic knowledge but little confidence, few marketable skills, and no clear pathway to contribute meaningfully to their communities.
At a local secondary school, that gap is closing. World Vision Zambia's Impact+ Club initiative has grown from a single teacher's vision into a thriving movement where learners make crafts, paintings, baskets, and bracelets, selling their work to sustain the club and fund community outreach. What began as a dream is now producing measurable change in young people's lives.
World Vision Zambia's Impact+ Club is a school-based initiative designed to equip adolescents with practical life skills, entrepreneurship, creative arts, and positive social values. Operating within secondary schools, the clubs create structured, safe spaces where young people learn from one another, develop leadership abilities, and engage in income-generating activities. Proceeds from handcrafted items fund both club operations and community outreach, ensuring learners practice generosity and civic responsibility alongside creativity. The initiative addresses key vulnerabilities facing adolescents, including harmful behaviours, limited economic opportunities, and weak social support systems, by building confidence, purpose, and a sense of belonging from an early age.
For club patron Mixon Mkandawire, the shift has been striking.
"Even if it started as a dream, looking at the activities we are doing as a club today is amazing," he says.
The club functions as both a creative space and a leadership school, where learners develop entrepreneurship, teamwork, and life skills alongside their artistic abilities.
The learners themselves tell the clearest story.
Karen, a club member, describes the experience as one of belonging and mutual growth.
"Impact+ Club is all about impacting something in one another," she says. "I may not know how to paint, but I learn from others every time we meet."
For her, the club offers something beyond skills. It offers joy, connection, and something worth returning to each week.
For Joshua, the club has become preparation for life beyond school.
"I've learned skills like painting, craft making, and bracelet making. These are skills I plan to use even after finishing school while I wait to go to university," he says.
Serving in a leadership role within the club deepened that preparation further. "We learned that caring for people and putting others before yourself is what leadership is about," he reflected.
The club's impact stretches beyond school grounds. Using proceeds from their sales, learners donated assorted items to a local hospital, demonstrating that their outward focus is already producing tangible community benefit. For Mixon, this spirit of generosity represents the initiative's greatest achievement.
"I celebrate when I see our children becoming responsible and thinking about others, not just themselves," he says. "Caring for others is one of the characteristics a leader must possess."
Through mentorship, peer learning, and entrepreneurship, World Vision Zambia's Impact+ Clubs are shaping a generation prepared to serve, lead, and give back. In Chama, the evidence is already clear. When young people are equipped with skills, purpose, and opportunity, they do not simply change their own lives. They begin transforming entire communities.