By MUTALE MWAMBA –

It started as a well nurtured desire to serve underprivileged and down trodden children in his homeland. As a young yet enthusiastic minister of the word pastor Samuel Sikapizye fondly referred to by many as Pastor Sam held on to his dream, over the years this dream has been transformed to reality probably beyond arenas that Pastor Sam himself could fathom when the idea was birthed. Operation iDream as this project is called is an operation that is underway and on course to deliver a more dignified standard of living for children in need.
Pastor Samuel Sikapizye (Pastor Sam thereafter) is an indigenous Zambian based in the United States of America (USA) in Sacramento. With his wife Kasamba – a member of the operation iDream board, they left home in the late 1990s with a view to preach the word in that part of the world yet at the back of their minds the couple knew setting up base in that land of plenty was an opportunity for them to one way or another contribute towards upping the living standards for their people and what better way to do it than through the children who represent the future and the abundant possibilities that lie ahead.
“I choose to believe that Operation iDream is a result of a number of personal experiences with a power greater than me, dreaming the future of my homeland drives the actions and choices I have made, my dreams have been prophetic and visionary,” Pastor Sam narrated when he spoke about the project in an interview with this author.
A trip to Ndola’s Twapia Township gives flesh to the noble venture so far talked about; Operation iDream’s purpose has materialised in this predominantly under privileged community. A significant ‘Village of hope’ that is under the project sits on a 20 acre piece of land and it houses an orphanage that takes in up to 20 children at a time and a community school that enrolls up to 350 children through to grade 7 at nearly no charge at all.
Other features under the village are a clinic that provides first line medical care to the children and the surrounding community members as well as a knowledge centre that provides basic orientation to the use of computers for the children who without doubt may not be privileged to access this necessary skill from home.
Other than providing meals for all the children when they are at school the project also provides food rations for the families these children that are not resident at the orphanage come from whenever funds allow.  Another component under Operation iDream which is seemingly close to Pastor Sam’s heart from the way he talks about it is what they refer to as the Alumni program which essentially prepares the children under their wing to one day compete favorably on the increasingly competitive global market. Under this program the operation funds the children from Junior Secondary school after they graduate from the community school in Ndola through to when they acquire a skill after completing their Grade 12.
“For us at Operation iDream the goal is to produce young people that can one day compete favorably on the global market by providing them with essential skills that will empower them to remain relevant on the market even with the rapidly changing trends. We feel it is not enough to just pull them out of a crisis at the point when we identify them and enroll them under our wing.” Pastor Sam said.
“What then happens to them if at grade seven when they graduate from our community school we surrender them back to the harsh conditions we rescued them from in the first place? It will be impossible for them to make it, they will fall prey to the obvious dangers that threaten under privileged children in our country,” He continued.
The project which is predominantly funded by the Real Life Church which Pastor Sam works under in the USA has benefited from a number of well wishers who are moved by tales of how rough the living conditions are for most people in Zambia, these investors according to Pastor Sam gain satisfaction from knowing that their contribution helps restore human dignity in the lives of the beneficiaries.
He explained that these investors essentially gave feet to his vision as it could have remained just a burning desire to serve without their having provided the resources required for this noble trip to begin.
Pastor Sam in emphasizing the significant role these investors have played in Operation iDream’s evolution traces the project’s journey from the time the first premises were acquired in Ndola’s Ndeke township to house the orphanage in 2004 to when the school was first set up at rented premises – a community welfare centre in Twapia through to today when the operation is running at its own premises that were built from scratch.
“Imagine from a three minute conversation with Barbara Hurst a friend from the USA our operation got under way, she called me a week after that brief conversation and told me she was going to donate 20,000 dollars to kick start our journey and from this money we bought a house in Ndeke township and identified 15 children, the first lot we took in under the orphanage,” He shared.
Pastor Sam further shared the vision of the operation going forward which includes increasing the clinic’s capacity into a hospital that will provide admission services and other vital medical services like dental care. Their other ambition will be to increase the number of dormitories to accommodate more orphans, improve and increase classroom space to take in more learners and further develop a multipurpose arena that will provide a communal gathering space and serve as a shelter for the displaced.
Operation iDream is without doubt a noble undertaking and one can only urge the pioneers of the project led by Pastor Samuel Sikapizye to remain steadfast on this noble course they have taken to provide a more dignified life for the underprivileged. It is further hoped that their vision for growth will materialize at all costs for the operation to touch even more lives.