Mbereshi (also spelled and pronounced Mbeleshi) is a village in the

Luapula Province Luapula Province is one of Zambia's ten provinces located in the northern part of the country. Luapula Province is named after the Luapula River and its capital is Mansa. As per the 2010 Zambian census, the Province had a population of 991,92 ...

Zambia Zambia (), officially the Republic of Zambia, is a landlocked country at the crossroads of Central, Southern and East Africa, although it is typically referred to as being in Southern Africa at its most central point. Its neighbours are t ...

, named after the

Mbereshi River The Mbereshi River (also spelled and pronounced 'Mbeleshi') drains the northern Zambian plateau north of Kawambwa and flows west into the Luapula valley. It enters the Luapula swamps near the Mofwe Lagoon. It gives its name to the village and former ...

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 in outlook, with Congregational m ...

. 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 section of Africa's second-longest river, the Congo. It is a transnational river forming for nearly all its length part of the border between Zambia and the DR Congo. It joins Lake Bangweulu (wholly in Zambia) to Lake ...

valley running from

Mansa Mansa may refer to: Places In India * Mansa, Gujarat, a town in northern Gujarat, Western India; the capital of: ** Mansa, Gujarat Assembly constituency ** Mansa State, a princely state under the Mahi Kantha Agency in India * Mansa district, ...

to Nchelenge and is north-east of Mwata Kazembe's town of

Mwansabombwe Kazembe (or Kasembe) is a name used for Kazembe, Mwata Kazembe's town in the Luapula Province of Zambia, especially on maps and in the Zambian postal service (as PO Kazembe). The other name for the town is Mwansabombwe ("where Mwansa works") and t ...

References

Christian missions in Zambia Populated places in Luapula Province 1900 establishments in the British Empire {{coord, 9, 44, S, 28, 47, E, display=title