"There was never a night or a problem that could defeat sunrise or hope."

First and lasting impressions

“Individual commitment to a group effort--that is what makes a team work, a company work, a society work, a civilization work." -Vince Lombardi

In late 2019, we were hired as Administrative Support Officer and Data Monitoring Officer. On our first day at Impact, we were greeted by the Human Resource, welcomed and given a brief orientation. We got a tour of the facility as well as introduced to the rest of the staff. The first thing we noticed was that they lived out their values, even the onboarding process showed that they cared to have us be up to date. The period at which we had joined was a busy time for everyone, however, we still received the support and help that we needed to get by with our various tasks. In addition, we were able to log in our new emails and start work on the first day, it was seamless and efficient. What we drew from this was the amazing teamwork at play because we noticed how each person in their various capacity was doing their part to contribute towards the overall achievement of the tasks they had at hand. Secondly, everyone seemed to be nice and accommodating of others, we noticed a willingness to help other colleagues. By the end of the day we had a picture of how working at Impact Network would be like for us.

We have learnt a lot in our various capacities and one such advancement is our Excel knowledge. The key highlight from day one is how amazingly supportive our teams have been towards ensuring that we learn the best ways of performing our duties. We are most grateful for this and look forward to many interesting skills exchange. 

Just four months down the line….

The Zambian government issued a mandate to close schools earlier than scheduled due to the Covid-19 pandemic. Without an ounce of hesitation, Impact Network staff worked together to secure equipment at the schools and did their best to support the students by disseminating translated information brochures with details about the virus transmission and prevention.

“There was never a night or a problem that could defeat sunrise or hope.”—Bernard Williams

The distribution of materials and information as well as staff coaching had been and continues to be remarkable! The entire team shifted to the “new normal” and we all work more independently and remotely than ever before. Our supervisor, Samuel Shawa, helped us both greatly in ensuring that we adapted to working away from the office. In the months that have followed the school closure, there have been so many supportive measures, including mask distribution and Impact Radio, which aims to keep all our students learning while traditional lessons are on hold.

Having observed the great things that the organization has been able to achieve, we see that indeed there is always a silver lining.

Thank you Impact Network for the opportunity!

-Busiwa Namwila, Administrative Support Officer

-Ethel Monze, Data Monitoring Officer