By SUN REPORTER
A HEAVY downpour which wreaked havoc in Kabushi Extension in Ndola has left a family in limbo after their house collapsed along with a chicken run.
More than 150 chickens and the feed were washed away in the inundating floods, throwing the only investment in disarray.
Ms Fides Luse and her family have since been left in the cold after the flash floods caused by heavy rainfall in the past one week and particularly affected her second child daughter who is a second-year student in nursing.
Her daughter, Cleaopatra, has greatly been affected and has no means of getting back to Choma School of Nursing to continue her studies.
This is because the chicken business was the only source of revenue for the family.
Cleopatra narrated in an interview that the heavy downpour washed away the chickens, the only source of income to support her education and livelihood for the rest of family members.
Cleopatra who is the last born in the family of five and raised by her single mother, lamented that their chicken run with 150 chickens were washed away while part of the house was also destroyed.
“Since the heavy downpour, we have encountered great loss. I am a student and my mother only rears chicken to support my education and now that everything has been destroyed, I don’t know how I am going to continue paying for my studies,” she said.
Cleopatra said that plans to complete her studies had been shuttered as she needed to pay K5,000 towards her tuition fees.
She has since appealed to Government and well-wishers to assist her with funds to pay for her education and also to help her mother with building materials to put up a new structure.
Her mother, she said, was a committed entrepreneur who would continue with the business of rearing chickens if she was assisted with funds.
She said her brothers were now spending nights on the veranda, a situation she described as unsafe for their lives.
And her mother appealed to Government to help her put up a new structure to continue with her business.
Ms Luse said it would help her ensure her child complete her education and that she was the only bread winner of the family.
The downpour damaged 15 houses in the area, leaving 57 families in limbo.