Mbereshi
(also spelled and pronounced Mbeleshi) is a village in the
Luapula Province
Luapula Province is one of Zambia's ten Provinces of Zambia, provinces located in the northern part of the country. Luapula Province is named after the Luapula River and its capital is Mansa, Zambia, Mansa. As per the 2022 Zambian census, the ...
of
Zambia
Zambia, officially the Republic of Zambia, is a landlocked country at the crossroads of Central Africa, Central, Southern Africa, Southern and East Africa. It is typically referred to being in South-Central Africa or Southern Africa. It is bor ...
, named after the
Mbereshi River on its north side. It is the site of a large mission founded in 1900 by the
London Missionary Society
The London Missionary Society was an interdenominational evangelical missionary society formed in England in 1795 at the instigation of Welsh Congregationalist minister Edward Williams. It was largely Reformed tradition, Reformed in outlook, with ...
. In 1915 the mission established
Mbereshi Girls' School, the first girls' school in the territory, as well as a boys' school and a large hospital. The Girls school and Hospital are now Grant Aided institutions run by The United Church of Zambia. Mbereshi contains a number of examples of mission buildings, including a large church which is now part of the
United Church of Zambia.
[Bwalya Chuba: "Mbeleshi in a history of the London Missionary Society". Pula Press, Gaborone, 2000.]
Mbereshi lies on the main tarred highway of the
Luapula River
The Luapula River is a north-flowing river of central Africa, within the Congo River watershed. It rises in the wetlands of Lake Bangweulu (Zambia), which are fed by the Chambeshi River. The Luapula flows west then north, marking the border betw ...
valley running from
Mansa to
Nchelenge and is north-east of
Mwata Kazembe's town of
Mwansabombwe.
References
Christian missions in Zambia
Populated places in Luapula Province
1900 establishments in the British Empire
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