Stephen Nzala: Coordinating Care and Confidence at Simonga
- Mar 28
- 3 min read
Updated: May 6
Stephen Nzala was born and raised in Southern Zambia and trained as a clinical officer in the capital after an early ambition to become a surgeon. He entered government service in 2022 at a referral hospital in Livingstone, where he began to see, up close, what distance and poverty can do to health outcomes. One case stayed with him for weeks: an elderly woman who had been referred from a rural clinic but could not afford the trip. It clarified something for him. Instead of staying at the referral hospital, he asked to move closer to the places where care is hardest to reach and where a small intervention can change an entire outcome.
Stephen arrived at Simonga Rural Health Center in April 2024 and quickly stepped into the precise, relentless rhythm of rural medicine: diagnosing patients, deciding on medication or non-pharmacological treatment plans, and carefully moving through the long line of needs that present themselves at the facility each day. When he reported for duty, he found something already changing the rhythm of the clinic and village life: the Tonga Teen Corner, a youth-friendly space set aside for adolescents. Management soon appointed him to coordinate its activities and help animate its programming.
He describes the appointment simply, almost matter-of-factly, but the work itself is anything but. It means showing up, week after week, for youth-friendly activities that happen during weekdays and weekends, staying close enough to support, and far enough back to let young people lead. It also means listening.
Stephen remembers the period when the walls were being painted, when the motto was chosen, and when the values were posted on the wall. What stays with him is the enthusiasm. He calls it “incredible,” the sense among the adolescents that this was truly their space, “a great teen attraction,” and a place where services could be offered “without any discrimination to their peers.”
If you ask Stephen what he notices when he walks into the teen corner in the afternoon, he begins with sound. He hears cheering when young people are playing games. He notices doors closed for discussions that require privacy. And then, in the moments that matter most to him, he hears the words adolescents say to each other while services are being delivered by one teen to another.
“I was afraid to open up my life circumstance to anyone,” a young person tells a peer.
Another says, “Thank you so much, and I will link up my friend who is at home with similar problems.”
In these brief sentences, you can hear what the building makes possible: openness without shame, and help that travels, one friend to another, beyond the walls of the room. Stephen has observed what he calls “big changes” in the teens he supports. They are more proactive about matters affecting them in school and in the community. They have free access to the building “without any restrictions,” and that access has changed behavior.
Stephen notes a significant increase in the number of adolescents coming to the clinic for care, including during pregnancy, and is careful to examine why. One reason is that information is reaching more young people through their peers, and girls who once stayed away due to self-stigma are now coming earlier for services. The other, more sobering reason is that there are still too few commodities available to prevent pregnancy and sexually transmitted infections.
He is also clear-eyed about what still persists. Teen pregnancy remains a profound challenge, and Stephen has seen how pregnancy can lead to early marriage when parents or guardians abandon support and send a girl to the man who impregnated her, whether she wishes it or not.
His hope for the future is practical and specific. He would like to see support for medical supplies such as emergency contraceptives and condoms, and “sufficient brochures,” information, education, and communication materials on developmental challenges.
Stephen also names transport support so adolescents can visit far-away villages and bring youth-friendly services to them. Distance, he says, is one of the main contributing factors behind early pregnancy and sexually transmitted infections.
While distances remain a struggle to information sharing, the teen corner has become a bridge for young people to access the services and medical attention they need, facilitated by the capable and caring hands of Stephen Nzala.
He helps keep the door open, literally and figuratively, so that adolescents can step inside without being judged, and step back out with a little more knowledge, courage, and hope.
