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Zimbabwe, Africa

ZIM02h - Fountain of Hope - Nemauzhe Community Development

• View report dated: May 13, 2021

• View report dated: February 23, 2022

• View report dated: May 5, 2022

• View report dated: September 9, 2022

• View report dated: May 17, 2023

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Report Date: August 31, 2021

Fountain of Hope Foundation Report August 2021

This is a new community that we have just started working in this season. This community is one of the largest communities of Chivi district with so many villages around. Our desire is to transform the community, one village at a time, so we have been working in a village called Chipunza of this community. The village has got 120 households and our team has worked with 30 of the villagers as well as the 600 school children at the community school.

Just like all the communities that we are working in, this is one of the driest communities of Zimbabwe and is found in climatic region 5 of the nation. This region always receives below normal rainfall annually hence the people of such communities have been surviving on hand-outs for so long and sadly this has created a dependence syndrome in this community. Fountain of Hope is therefore endeavouring to glorify God in this community through breaking the cycle of poverty by empowering people and families to practice sustainable agriculture as well as providing water for drinking and productive purposes. 

This community is very well known as a community where even cows and goats die because of hunger and we thank God that we are working hard to reverse all that, so that the people and animals of this community may have enough food to eat. The community has got 14,000 people in total. Please find below the success report of the two projects that we are involved in, in this community: 

Recent Events

Foundations for Farming Training

30 people from this dry community with very poor soils were trained by our agricultural officer to practice Foundations for Farming. They were trained to grow maize, sorghum, cow peas and groundnuts in their pieces of land. We are so proud of the splendid job that our agricultural officer has been providing the people of this community. This is a completely a new technique for these people and they have been using the conventional ways of farming which have not improved their harvest over the years. We thank God that these people became so convinced that this is the way out of hunger and poverty hence they had to hold onto the new teachings brought to them by our trainer. He even trained them to start using this new technique on various crops which they had never grown in their community. 

The program was really very successful in this community, 75% of the 30 people who were trained did very well in this program. It is really our pleasure to report that many of these families have got food that is enough to feed them for the rest of the year. There is joy for the first time in the community because there is plenty of food in people’s homes, thank you so much Bright Hope World for the support. 

Challenges:
1) The road network was not very good this year because roads were washed away by the rains.
2) People lost their livestock this year due to a number of water borne diseases of which some of them were incurable.
3) Crops like maize were affected as well by various devourers and diseases
4) We thank God that the people managed to repair their bad roads making it possible for us to reach out to them during the rainy season
5) Our agricultural officer came up with a cheap remedy to the problems of crop parasites although it was difficult on livestock.

Resolutions:
The community asked Fountain of Hope to consider bringing another village into the program, that is another village within the bigger community of Nemauzhe. 

It was also recommended that instead of only focusing on enabling families to have enough food we need also to think of helping families use farming as a part of business. The community and Fountain of Hope are therefore going to run training on farming as a business.

Foundations for Farming training should start as soon as people have finished harvesting since it takes a lot of work to run.

The community is semi-desert and Fountain of Hope was encouraged to consider growing trees in the community. Fountain of Hope is going to begin by training and challenging people to grow trees to transform their lives. 

 

Borehole Drilling

The school has never had a clean source of drinking water for many years. Teachers, the school children and the community would get water from a river that is more than 5km away from the school. All these people would share the water source with animals and this has been the biggest challenge at the school since children would always suffer water borne diseases every year. Most organisations had not found it easy to drill a borehole in this community because surveyors have said that there is completely no ground water in the community hence even those who once tried to drill a borehole failed to get water. Our team decided to take a step of faith and drill a borehole in a community where everyone was saying that it’s impossible to get water. 

We are glad that we drilled and got water in this impossible community and brought many smiles on the faces of the teachers and the school children. This water project is going to improve sanitation at this school since they now have clean and safe drinking water, will reduce water borne diseases and improve the school pass rate because qualified teachers will now stay at the school. Qualified teachers have been running away from the school citing the water and electricity problem. The pass rate at this school has been at 1% annually and we believe that the borehole is going to go a long way in increasing the pass rate to between 20 and 30%. Thank you so much Bright Hope World for supporting us to enable this school to have a permanent source of clean and safe drinking water. 

Challenges and Solutions: 
The school is surrounded by a number of villages which do not have a water source and rely mostly on getting water from the river bed. The school is therefore going to share the water with the community during school holidays but will not share with the community when the school is open so that the school children may get maximum water for drinking as well as for watering the garden. 

The school desires to start a school garden to grow vegetables and other crops for sale. The finances that are going to be produced in this project will be used to pay school fees for vulnerable children who are part of the school. 60% of the children at this school are orphans and vulnerable children. 

Recommendations:
1) The school was encouraged to consider sharing water with the villagers on a daily basis especially during the summer time when the river bed will be dry.

Fountain of Hope was asked to consider drilling at least one other borehole for the villagers.

2) The community suggested to the school to establish a school garden which will be used to produce vegetables for the children to eat and also for the school to have an income. Apart from that the garden is going to positively give the opportunity to school children to gain agricultural skills that will help them in life.

Fountain of Hope was asked by the community and the school authorities to release the agricultural officer to provide lessons to the teachers and the school students. 

  

Comments

Fountain of Hope staff members would like to hereby register their deep appreciation to Bright Hope World for all the support that is being rendered to the communities and villages that we are working in. Thank you so much for partnering with us in bringing hope to the hopeless, our communities are slowly but surely getting transformed through the support that comes from you. Your support has undoubtedly brought hope to the young people whose hopes were dashed by a myriad of challenges that we are going through right here in Zimbabwe. The farming God’s way program has brought smiles on the hearts of the families that used to struggle with food insecurity. 

Our economic challenges coupled with the deadly pandemic issues has really brought many communities to their knees. Most of our communities were and are really affected by COVID-19 and many people lost their jobs, while a number of grandparents who were now the sole providers of orphans and vulnerable children are succumbing or have succumbed to the deadly pandemic. In one of the communities that we work with, this year’s winter season really brought a dark cloud over the community since a day would barely go by without the death of an old person. Children are left with no food and some of them without shelter. Thank you so much Bright Hope World that through your support, we are able to provide shelter at Peniel Centre as well as feeding these children at our Transformation Centres. 

The support from Bright Hope World has opened a great opportunity for our team to be able to disciple the people from the communities that we work with. The support for the Transformation Centres is helping us to touch the lives of children, the youth and the community at large. The Foundations for Farming has brought a number of people to Christ and now we are coming up with farmers groups which are smaller groups in the villages that we work with where farmers meet together to learn and to pray together. The skills development centre has gone a long way in taking young people off the streets and these young people are being taught to know God and make Him known.

Thank you so much Bright Hope World for the support.