Excitement As ’’Zambia” Awaits Independence

Press, Volume CIII, Issue 30433, 6 May 1964, Page 2

Excitement As ’’Zambia” Awaits Independence

The movement of a young country towards independence produces many complex situations to be resolved, but it can also j create a feeling of stimulation and excitement during the planning of a new future. This is the current atmosphere in Northern Rhodesia, which will attain nationhood later this year, said Mrs I Nancy Bean, who has lived there for the last 18 years, in Christchurch yesterday.

Formerly a teacher in Christchurch, she is the wife of Mr L. Bean, the permanent secretary to the Prime Minister of Northern Rhodesia (Dr. K. Kaunda). She is on five months’ leave and is staying with her mother, Mrs W. Neilson, of 27 Devonport drive Her husband and 15-year-old daughter, at school in England, will join her later.

Mr Bean is at present m London with Dr. Kaunda and the Governor of Northern Rhodesia <Sir Evelyn Hone) taking part its talks concerning the country's new const!-’ tiition. From October 24 Northern Rhodesia will be' known as Zambia, named after the Zambesi river. It was a time of change, and the understanding and. acceptance of this was important. Mrs Bean said.

Dr. Kaunda had said there was room for ail—Africans. Europeans and Asians—in the new nation. For though the Government is now an allAfrican one, there were insufficient qualified and experienced Africans to fill all positions.

Election There had been intense interest tn the recent general election, and many villagers had travelled long distances over difficult, swampy country to record their votes, she said. Each party had been denoted on the ballot papers by a symbol: that for Dr. Kaunda’s party had been a shovel. “This was to symbolise toil, and the importance of returning to work on the land,” Mrs Bean explained. Governing a country composed of many tribes each with its own language has its difficulties and Dr. Kaunda was encouraging his countrymen to drop their tribal

African schools children were taught in the vernacular. Giris and women are eager. for education, and now have the opportunities for receiving it. Once men did not want them to but they now realise the value of an educated wife who could take her place beside her husband in business and society. There was also an awaken-, ing of interest among women in their position in the community, Mrs Bean said. They were learning what legal protection they can gain from civil, as well as tribal marriages. Adults can receive education and technical training at Government-run Development Area Training Centres. While the men might be learning carpentry or bricklaying their wives attend classes in simple hygiene, nutrition, first aid and homecrafts. Lessons at these centres vary to meet the needs of the locality, Mrs Bean said. In towns, where their husbands might be working for wages, women could learn to budget for her housekeeping.

ways, and regard themselves as one people, working for their country as a whole. Mrs Bean said. She had seen the peoples of the country make tremendous strides ahead in the years she had lived among them, Mrs Bean said. Perhaps the greatest had been the growth in the importance of education, particularly among women. There is a real thirst for education now.” New schools were being built, but the difficulty was to provide a sufficient number and to staff them. Since she had been settled in Lusaka, the modern capital city. Mrs Bean has taken up her profession again, to help in the shortage.

Lessons In English The school at which she has been teaching was a multiracial one, with lessons taken in English, she said. In purely