Official Opening of the Chaisa Community Learning Center

The opening of the Chaisa Community Learning Center has been a true labor of love. The establishment and maintenance of this Center is a result of partnerships between the Zambian Government, the United States Government, multiple private companies, non-profit organizations, and generous individuals, some of whom you will hear from today. These partnerships will ensure the success of the center.

From the landlord who renovated this property, making it suitable for a community center, to the companies – Microsoft, Intel, and Connect Africa – who donated computers and software, to the Zambia Police’s Victim Support Unit who will help staff the Center; we are all working together towards the common goal of defeating HIV/AIDS and its destructive impact on our communities.

As part of the Chaisa Community Learning Center partnership, the PEPFAR – through USAID – funded COMETS project is providing staff, health care services, counseling, and a safe venue to learn about healthy behavior.

Maintaining successful partnerships is an important part of our efforts to stem the HIV/AIDS epidemic in Zambia. This year’s HIV/AIDS slogan in Zambia is “Getting to Zero New Infections.” We can do this. But only if we work together.

We must work together with those in the community who will ultimately turn the tide of HIV in Zambia and sustain the advances we are jointly making every day in the battle against HIV/AIDS.

In addition to the Chaisa Community Center, the COMETS project, with support from the American people, will open twenty-two more community centers around Zambia.

Each of those centers will operate in partnership with government, private businesses, and non-governmental organizations, combining resources and talents to better serve the community.

As Bill Gates of Microsoft once said, “Our success has really been based on partnerships from the very beginning.”

So it is with those of us here today. Partnerships benefit all of us. Partnerships magnify and multiply the impact of our efforts and ensure sustainability.

The American people are proud to partner with the Zambian people and all of the organizations here today that contribute to a better life for Zambians.