Zimbabwe, Africa
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Report Date: July 23, 2015
Thank you very much Bright Hope World for partnering with us in brightening the lives of orphans, vulnerable children and downtrodden communities. Your support is really going a long way in bringing enormous transformation in the two communities that we work in.
Garden
Pictured to the right is the flourishing garden which we established in Makamure community which is really improving the health of children and adults of this community. The garden is close to a small dam in the community which dried up in January this year as they didn’t receive much rainfall, so there was literally no water entering the silted dam. However the lack of water did not detour this community from moving ahead with the plan of building up a one hectare garden. Their desire has been to have a garden to reduce malnutrition and improve the health status of the community.
The encouraging thing for us is how this community is so geared up to use the resources which they have to improve their quality of life. They worked so hard together with our team members to put up the garden, no outsider was sort to cut down the poles for the garden, they did it themselves. We only bought the fence and the nails.
This garden has been a miracle in this community, for people who used not to work together are now able to do so in the garden. There is a great improvement in community relations because of this garden. When the people of this community realised that there was no water source (the borehole we drilled in this community provides only drinking water) for the garden, they gathered together and opened up a well (see picture) in the sand in the silted dam. Our prayers are to be able to work with the community in scooping their dam so that they can harvest rain water which they can use to irrigate their garden throughout the year. We are praying for finances to have the machinery to do so because the well which they dug in the dam is going to dry up very soon eventually causing everything in the garden to wilt. Through this garden many families have been changed because they now have green veggies for consumption and are able to sell the surplus. Our fears are the community will go back again to the issues of malnutrition once the well in the dam dries up, hence our desire to scoop the whole dam.
Goats
Apart from the garden, we successfully managed to buy 60 goats for a goat loan programme in Makamure this year. 20 families from five different churches were the first beneficiaries of this program which we believe will go a long way in making the vulnerable have a herd of animals as a way of averting hunger and lack in this dry community of Zimbabwe. We are glad to let you know that this project, just like the garden, is making big strides in uniting the Church and the people of the community and reducing the impact of HIV/AIDS in the community, thanks to Bright Hope.
Foundations for Farming
"Even though this year is a drought year and other people did not get something from their fields due to poor rains received this season, I am so much grateful to Foundations for Farming training, for my family managed to harvest something from our fields. We are not going to buy maize like other people for we have enough to take us through to December”, these were the words of Mr Chigowi (on our evaluation day) who successfully followed the principles of farming God's way for the first time in Makamure and got a harvest in a drought year.
Mr Chigowi (his wife is pictured in their maize field) and a few other farmers in this community who embraced and followed closely this conservation farming are a great testimony in this community about Foundations for Farming. This has led to so many people from different villages approaching their councillor to talk with Fountain of Hope to include everyone in Ward 19 of Chivi in this type of farming. We are working on selecting a few villages to be involved in this project as we cannot take the whole ward which is quite big for our resources.
Feeding Program
Due to the drought in this province, we have just started a small feeding program in Mandiva village, where we are feeding 25 children twice per week. Our aim is to see these children, and other children from the community, going to school and participating fully in school activities, not being hindered by lack of food or school fees. The Village head is so much appreciative of this initiative for it is going to go a long way in reducing malnutrition as well as help children to remain in school.
All the above projects which are currently taking place in Makamure have positively impacted relations in the community. The community is undoubtedly walking towards unity which will eventually make them be able to do things together. The above projects have led us to work together with the whole community in addressing the issues of health, i.e. training the village health workers, and helping the community to come up with their priority community projects. We have seen the community initiating a number of projects like building a bridge where there was no bridge on their road etc. We are grateful so much to Bright Hope World that through your support this downtrodden community is beginning to rise up.
Gardens
The gardens in this community are not only enabling the people of this community to get nutritious food but are going a long way in providing great lessons of land and water conservation. These gardens are also a vehicle of bringing the people of the community together to discuss different issues that affect the community. Issues of HIV/AIDS and other diseases are tackled in these gardens. They are also a good ground for discipleship meetings for the Church and we actually have seen people receiving their healing after being prayed for in the garden.
We pray that the small dam where the people get their water for gardening will not dry up until the next rain season. Thank you again Bright Hope World for bringing light to the people of this community, your support is really going a long way in making the community walk towards their destiny.
Foundations for Farming
Our desire this year for all the people who are practicing Foundations for Farming in the community of Mthombothemba was to start a community grain barn but unfortunately we did not receive much rainfall this season which led us to shelve this idea for this coming farming season. One thing that excites us is how the people of this community are so geared up to apply Foundations for Farming principles in this land which is both dry and rocky as pictured herein.
Mr Ngwenya (above) has very rocky land but that does not detour him from applying the principles of farming God's way. We are glad to let you know that most of our farmers from Mthombothemba have got food which will last them the whole of this winter season and will only have to buy food as from the beginning of summer. The farming God's way is really proving to be the only way of farming that puts food on the table.
About 50 families from this community have been trained and one of the families, the Linda family (pictured herein) got a harvest this year which will last them the whole of the year. Just like in Makamure, the community councillor now wants everyone to be involved in this kind of farming, for it drives away hunger and malnutrition from the community. People are currently working on preparing for the next season and are praying for enough rainfall so that the desire of starting a community barn becomes a reality. The community barn will be used to provide food to orphans and vulnerable children as well as to the sick and elderly people.
Community Feeding
The feeding centre, which we now call the Transformation Centre, is improving the health of children especially those who have HIV/AIDS. We are not only providing meals to these children but are giving life-skills, teaching them the word of God, providing pyscho-social support and paying school fees and buying uniforms for 15 of these children.
Livestock Revolving Project
This is one of the projects which is really doing very well in this community because there is plenty of grazing area for goats as well as water from one of the dams which we did in the community. Our desire is to see these goats helping and assisting many or eventually all orphan families from this community and beyond. Please see the testimony below.
Simanga (Mthombothemba Community Feeding Program)
Simanga's parents died when she was still very young and she was left in the custody of a distant aunt. When her parents died this little girl and her sister lost everything that their parents had. They went from one home to another to live until the aunt took Simanga (pictured with Gideon) in. The child and the aunt didn’t know that this wonderful girl was born infected with HIV up until she became seriously ill. The aunt didn’t have money to send her to the clinic, so she contacted the community child protection committee which also contacted Fountain of Hope. We did not take long to send this girl to hospital where we were told that she is HIV positive and is malnourished. Immediately we put her on the feeding program and started to monitor the improvement of her health.
Thank you very much that your support is going a long way in bringing life to such children; she began to improve ever since we put her in the feeding program. By the time she got sick she had already stopped going to school because there was no one to pay fees for her and immediately after her health began to pick up we took her to school. She now goes to school like anyone else and has got great ambition of succeeding in life, THANK YOU SO MUCH.
Sakhile (Mthombothemba Livestock Program)
Sakhile had scary convulsions, stopped breathing etc. while at school, such that the school authority had to quickly take her to hospital. At the hospital, after her situation stabilised, the doctor told her that she needed blood transfusion and that he could not do any further tests nor give her any medication nor do the transfusion if there is no money upfront. Her father is in prison. Her mother is one of the beneficiaries of the goat loan program and her goats had been miraculously increasing. This woman does not have any source of income whatsoever.
Upon hearing that there was money needed at hospital, she remembered that she had some goats and quickly she sends word across the community that she was selling a goat to pay hospital bills for her daughter and to help her get blood and other medication needed for her. The goat was quickly sold and she managed to pay the bills that the doctor was asking for. Sakhile was able to go for sports with the rest of the students of her school and was one of the girls who won at the competition. Thank you again that the goat project is really also saving lives, if this woman had no goats it was going to be difficult for her to pay the hospital bills and her daughter could be still struggling by now.
The goat herd for these families is really the wealth that they have and thank you again Bright Hope for the support.
The centre continues to provide a home, family, hope and future to 22 orphans and vulnerable children from in and around Matabeleland provinces. All the children at the centre are going to school, some of them are already in college and we pray that they will find something to do in Zimbabwe upon completion of their courses since many companies continue to close down in this nation. We are glad to let you know that most of these children have got identity documents now apart from only 3 who are still struggling.
We are slowly making the Peniel garden a resource centre for Foundations for Farming training for the communities that we work in and even other communities beyond the current two. Recently we had people from Zambia (Livingstone), Malawi (Blantyre) and South Africa (Cape Town) coming to learn from our small garden about conservation farming. This garden is going a long way in providing food as well as skills training to the children we have. We are quite sure that they will be able to put into practice these skills after they have left Peniel centre.
Fountain of Hope staff members, children and the two communities we work with would like to hereby appreciate Bright Hope World for all the support you are rendering to us, without which we could not have achieved what we have achieved so far. We are grateful.
With much gratitude
Gideon & Jennifer Chishamba
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