Solwezi is the capital town of the North West Province of Zambia. Its population has tripled since the year 2000 to some 160,000 inhabitants.    It stands at an elevation of 1235 m above sea level.   The largest tribe represented in Solwezi is Kaonde,but there are also  large numbers of Lunda and Luvale speaking people.

Economics

The main industry of Solwezi is copper mining at The Kansanshi Mine (located about 10 km north) and The Lumwana Mine (located about 65 km West), out of the town centre.

The renewed activity in copper mining has resulted in a large influx of economic migrants —like engineers and transportation employees — and those working in supporting services both formal (banks, mobile phone and internet companies, retail, etc) and informal (such as taxicabs, street vendors, and sex workers).

This large influx is taking place into a community without the means to to absorb many of the lower economic groups.  Nor the normal infrastructure to support them.  Our challenge is to meet the challenge of traditional poverty, but also to recognise a different kind of poverty that such materialism brings in its wake.

With new population growth comes a growth in demand for goods and services and local traders must use such premises as they can find.

‘We regret that we do not have a fitting room’.