Frequently asked questions.

Unseen Minority is a youth-led organisation based in Lusaka, Zambia, working to amplify opportunities and dismantle systemic barriers for minority youth and entrepreneurs. We run three programmes: Box of Hope (school essentials for children in Ndeke Village, Kitwe), Imiti N'ashikula (action-based youth activation, including the Citizen Academy initiative), and Shifting the Focus (advocacy that centres survivors and prevention).

Not yet. We are registering under the NGO Act No. 16 of 2009 and the Societies Act Cap. 119 of the Laws of Zambia. Our Constitution, Articles of Association, and MOU framework are complete and adopted by our founding board; formal registration with the Ministry of Community Development is our next institutional milestone. We describe our status precisely at every stage and do not call ourselves a registered NGO until that registration is complete.

Unseen Minority was founded in 2024 by Christopher Jambila and George Mbewe, then Vice President and Deputy Speaker of the University of Zambia Student Union. Christopher serves as Executive Director and George as Chief of Operations, alongside a seven-person founding board drawn from law, finance, education, community development, and communications.

Box of Hope, our flagship pilot providing school essentials to children in Ndeke Village, Kitwe, is the one programme accepting gifts directly today, processed exclusively through our pilot partner Sonka. If you'd rather give in-kind items or donate directly to one of our partner institutions on this pilot, contact us and we'll put you in touch. Beyond Box of Hope, Unseen Minority does not yet accept financial donations directly. We will open a formal giving mechanism once our registration with the Ministry of Community Development is complete.

Our pilots run through community structures in Ndeke Village, Kitwe (Box of Hope) and Lusaka (Imiti N'ashikula and Shifting the Focus). Volunteers prepare and deliver Box of Hope kits, mentor Imiti N'ashikula participants, and support Shifting the Focus's advocacy work. All roles involving children or survivors require safeguarding screening and training, with no exceptions. If you are a student, professional, or community member in Lusaka who wants to contribute, write to us with your area of interest.

We are seeking institutional partners, including embassies, UN agencies, corporate CSR programmes, and implementing organisations, for our first pilot cycle. Each programme has a defined scope and outcome framework. Our Constitution, Articles of Association, MOU framework, and pilot designs are available to prospective partners on request as part of due diligence.

Box of Hope is Unseen Minority's flagship pilot, currently running in Ndeke Village, Kitwe. It provides orphaned and underprivileged children who lack parental support with exercise books, pens and pencils, a school backpack, and a full school uniform, so every child can walk into class prepared and confident.

Imiti N'ashikula is our action-based youth activation programme, built on the idea that contribution, not permission, is the proof of readiness. It runs three tracks: community contribution projects (60 days), a micro-enterprise cohort (90 days), and civic and policy contribution at ward level. It is also the programme under which we are developing the Citizen Academy initiative, for which we are actively seeking institutional partners.

Shifting the Focus is Unseen Minority's advocacy and civic engagement programme, working to re-centre Zambia's advocacy culture from the perpetrator to the survivor and prevention through webinars, publications, and advocacy. Over the next two years, we aim to grow it into a four-stage, wrap-around case-support model alongside existing legal and social services.

It's the Bemba proverb Unseen Minority is named for: "trees grow to become a forest." Taken as instruction, it teaches patience: wait your season, and permission will come once you've grown into it. Imiti N'ashikula, the name of our second programme, is our answer to that instruction: it treats contribution itself, not waiting, as the proof of readiness.

Email hello@unseenminorityzm.org or use the form on our Contact page. We are based in Lusaka, Zambia, and respond to institutional enquiries within three working days. Mention that you'd like governance documents or pilot frameworks and we'll include them in our first reply.