In 2005, while heavily pregnant, Ireen Mbumwae went into labour on the wrong side of the Luampa River. As the river swelled, she struggled to cross to reach the clinic. She delivered before she got there. These days, she spends most of her mornings watching her son cross the same river on a 120-metre bridge on his way to school. 

Several kilometres down the road, another community member, Mary Mainza, is feeding her children before her morning check-up. Mary is 8 months pregnant with her third child. She has two boys already, and she is quietly hoping this one is a girl. She lives with her sister and her aunt, in a home that is now closer to the road than the one she lived in before. When she learned she was pregnant, Mary deliberately moved closer to the road, knowing that easier access to the clinic would matter during her pregnancy. Ireen remembers what the crossing used to be and how difficult it was to move in the rainy season.  

Along a different stretch of the same road, former refugee and farmer, Ernesto Chisungu has built a home for him and his family. Originally from Angola, he came to Mayukwayukwa as a refugee, after a landmine took his lower leg.  To him, his disability is not the limit, the challenges he faces are more structural, shaping how easily he can reach a clinic, and how easily a health worker or service can reach him. 

Both the bridge Ireen’s son uses to get to school and road Mary and Ernesto live beside, were delivered under the first phase of the Development of Basic Infrastructure in Settlements for Displaced Persons and their Host Communities Project (DBI). The project is a partnership between the Government of Zambia through the Office of the Vice President's Resettlement Division, the Government and people of Japan through the Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA), and the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP). Built by the Zambia National Service, the infrastructure connects farming blocks, communities, and government services to each other. For farmers along the road, the change has been about markets. For Ireen, Mary, Ernesto, and others like them, the change has been about access to basic services such as quality education and healthcare.