The second runner-up is twenty-seven-year-old Dr Buumba Malambo who is a humanitarian and the youngest ward councillor for Magoba in the history of Zambia.
She is the founder of the Buumba Malambo foundation, which conducts various programmes, including the Mwana Apumzile project and the Azimai Apunzile project, among others.
Dr Malambo is also a social work graduate from the University of Zambia. Her love for social work began at the tender age of 15 years, when she started volunteering at the Judith Chikonde foundation.
At 16 years of age she started her own charity. At the age of 18 she was the youngest serving member of the Ministry of Gender and Child National Coordination Committee. She organised events such as the international day of the girl child and the day of an African child.
She also advocates for access to education, sensitisation on rape and defilement, and uses her position as the councillor of Magoba to lobby the government on these issues. The need to have her voice heard and to change the lives of vulnerable children fuelled her desire to get into politics.
She established the Buumba Malambo foundation in Zambia in 2012 and registered it in Britain in 2016. The foundation runs the Mwana Apumzile project, a sponsorship programme where the sponsors send $30 for every child they choose to sponsor.
When the project started in 2017, they had only one child on the programme. Today the programme sponsors more than 814 children, with donors contributing towards their education and wellness needs.
The Azimai Apunzile is similar project, but focuses on providing opportunities at night school lessons to educate women and teach them to read and write. The project also works with the youth through a school sponsorship and entrepreneurship project called “Pop a future”.
The “Pop a future” programme has taken eight students to universities and 21 pupils to secondary school. The programme has also donated popcorn machines to young people with the aim to equip them with entrepreneurial skills.
Mlambo has won various awards for her work and acknowledgement for her contributions, including the African International Achievers Award in 2014 and African Youth of the year in 2018. She was acknowledged by the Queen Young Leaders Advisory Panel for her contributions and met the Queen at Buckingham Palace in June 2015.
She says she is driven by the desire to see change in the lives of vulnerable children and the need to create access to education. Her vision is for her charity work to expand to other African countries and see more vulnerable children placed on the sponsorship programme.
She aspires to move from councillor level to Minister of Education, serving as a member of parliament in Zambia. She believes that this will enable her to influence educational policies and programmes that will favour the vulnerable youth and children.
She says young people have an important role to play in advocating for the end of child trafficking, for access to education and grants through the use of technology and other advocacy initiatives.
(c) Instagram
On top of her agenda is the need to establish ways in which young people across the region can work together to create employment and address current challenges of access to education, improved leadership, entrepreneurship and curbing xenophobia.
