Fountain of Hope staff would like to hereby appreciate Bright Hope World for the support that is being rendered to different communities and villages where FHF is making an impact. Many lives are being touched and many souls are coming to Christ, even those on leadership of communities. The projects that are run in these communities are not only transforming the socio-economic situations of communities but are undoubtedly bringing many to Christ. For instance, recently in Chivi the council CEO, who had seen Fountain of Hope touching the lives of orphans and vulnerable children, decided to give up worshipping other gods and turned to the true living God. This is because he had seen these projects improving the lives of people and changing the behaviours of young and old people especially in the community of Makamure. The community of Chirogwe which used not to be enthusiastic about transformation of their community has amazingly joined other communities in running the race of defining their future. It is because of the transformation taking place in these communities that has caused people like the CEO of Chivi to want to worship this God of transformation.
Fountain of Hope staff members have been working hard since the end of September to the beginning of the year 2018 especially in the area of training people to practice Foundations for Farming. Most of these farmers are very convinced that this is one of the best ways of practicing farming such that they are going into villages recruiting other people to follow suit. Fountain of Hope staff members did not even rest during the Christmas break as they wanted people to get as much as possible from the training they had on Foundations for Farming.
Towards the end of December/beginning of January Fountain of Hope had an evaluation process with the communities to find out how the projects have been having an impact in the lives of people. Please find herein below the evaluation summary report for Mthombothemba community :
Mthombothemba is a community in Umguza district of Matabeleland North province of Zimbabwe. It has a population of 10,000 people including children. It has been the community that is known for hunger, high prostitution, highest number of orphans, and highest number of children who drop out of school but thank God that Fountain of Hope has been and is working hard to reverse the negative picture of the community. In the last evaluation the Councillor and the acting chief of the area testified that there is a great improvement in the quality of life in the community. The number of children who now go to school has increased and the number of those who drop out of school has decreased. The number of people who are dying of HIV/AIDS has dropped, the sick are able to go to clinics and hospitals. People also managed to harvest a lot, especially in the last farming season, thereby improving food security in the community. Please find below the areas that Fountain of Hope has been involved in Mthombothemba:
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110 people were trained and equipped to practice Foundations for Farming in their fields and gardens.
Impact: 80% of the people who were trained and equipped in the past farming season managed to harvest food that is enough to feed their families for 52 weeks. The program had a regional impact because people from different areas came to Mthombothemba to learn about how these people succeeded in producing food for 52 weeks in a land that is very rocky and arable. 2017 was the only year that the community of Mthombothemba has not had to ask the government and other relief organisations for extra support in terms of food aid. The last season was the season out of all other seasons when the people of this community had food in their barns. Thank you so much Bright Hope World for making this to be a possibility.
Challenges: Last season the community received better rainfall but unfortunately this season the rain is very scarce. The community has only received less than 100mm in three months time and this shows that we might be heading for another drought. The things that the community had planted are beginning to wilt.
Resolutions: The community agreed that the best way of increasing food security in the community is through turning Mthombothemba green by harvesting water for productive purposes. The ground water that is harvested can be used to grow vegetables especially in village A and Makwibila where there is no garden. The community also resolved to stop giving young people pieces of land for farming. They are going to work on applying to the local government for their young people to be provided with land where they can start practicing farming and build their own homes since Mthombothemba is already overcrowded.
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Fountain of Hope facilitated the community to have five gardens in the community of Mthombothemba supporting 300 school children and 80 families. The community appreciated Fountain of Hope for also training the community on what to grow in their community gardens. These gardens are going a long way in improving the quality of life of people of the community especially those who are HIV/AIDS positive as they are able to have fresh green veggies for their families.
Impact: In the whole district of Umguza this is the only community with gardens that are improving the quality of life not only of adults but also school children. One of the gardens is used now by the Ministry of Education in Zimbabwe to give agricultural skills to school children. The community reported that the gardens are not only having an impact in the community but in the whole district as other schools are now coming to the community to learn about farming. The success of these gardens have caused Fountain of Hope staff members to be called by other communities to teach them on how to start such projects. One of the men who is a beneficiary of these gardens was able to go for an operation at the hospital with the money that he got from the gardens. Going to a surgery in Zimbabwe is very expensive but this man was able through the selling of garden produce.
Challenges: The community mentioned the following challenges:
1) The gardens sometimes flood the market since all the gardens would have grown the same type of crop
2) Three gardens get their water from boreholes where people also get water for drinking and this becomes a challenge as some days the borehole will not have enough water for the gardens
3) There is no transport to transport their produce to the market.
Resolutions:
1) Village A and Makwibila should be encouraged to have their own gardens so that the community really becomes a green belt
2) The trainers should encourage different gardens to grow different vegetables so that the gardens may compliment each other.
3) People should bring funds together and buy a small truck which will take their produce to the market in Bulawayo town
Fountain of Hope is running goat, cow and chicken projects in Mthombothemba to improve the economic status of the members of the community. Fountain of Hope facilitated the community to build up a dam a few years ago so that the livestock in the community may have water to drink. A dip tank was built as well to stop the increase of diseases amongst animals and training on livestock management was provided. Many people in this community started with the goat project and have been growing from there.
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This widow, Catherine Maloney, is very proud of herself and the goat project. Her husband died and left her with literally nothing. This led her children to drop out of school because there was no money to pay school fees with. Her eldest son decided to go to South Africa to get employment but sadly he was deported after staying in South Africa for a week. The widow and her family had sold the few things they had for this young man to go to South Africa and they had hoped that he was going to come back with money so that they would be able to buy better things. Unfortunately he came back with nothing, all that they sold was lost just like that. The widowss predicament became very enormous and she literally did not know what to do. She was left with no chickens and absolutely nothing to sell so that they could buy food for the family.
Reprieve came when she was told about the goat project and she was one of the first people to get the goats. Her goats did very well and multiplied and after giving them to the next person she was able to remain with other goats. The ones that she remained with also multplied and she began to sell the offspring in order to start another income generating project. She has just started a broiler chicken project out of the goat project. She has 250 broilers and is looking forward to getting over $100 a month out of the broiler project. The project is going to help her to buy food for her family as well as buying all other basic necessities for her family.
Challenges: The greatest challenge that the people have been facing is the wild dogs that have been eating goats whenever they go out for grazing.
Resolutions: The community would like to see people running broiler chicken projects to compliment the garden projects. Some like Catherine Maloney are going to sell their goats in order to start a chicken project. Fountain of Hope is talking with different people in and outside Bulawayo who are willing to buy broilers from these farmers. Since the market is there, the community is encouraged to start this project which will go a long way even in the drought days to provide the people with food. Broilers drink a lot of water, so clean, safe water sources have to be established in the community.
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60 orphans and vulnerable (OVC) children are helped to get a meal every day.
35 OVC are helped to remain in school through the provision of school fees every school term.
Mthombothemba transformation centre is one of the best interventions in helping children who live with old grannies or other relatives after the death of their parents. This transformation centre provides a place of safety, a meal, a study centre, an agricultural skills centre, and a psycho-social support centre. The centre has improved the quality of life of orphans and vulnerable children through the different activities that take place at this centre.
Impact: The centre is shaping the future of orphaned and vulnerable children especially those who had dropped out of school. Mthombothemba used to have the highest number of school drop-outs in the district of Umguza and was the third community in the whole of Zimbabwe with the highest number of children who drop out of school. The pass rate at the primary school was 3% and many children used to stop going to school at grade seven. The centre, which provides a place for OVC's to study, has improved the grade seven pass rate in the community school now to an average of 80% annually. Some of these children are proving to be the best at the schools where they go. Please see the testimony below:
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Due to the economic situation that Zimbabwe has been going through Mary's father left her and the entire family for greener pastures in South Africa. The day that he left for South Africa was the last day that the family saw their father. He was never seen again and no one knows whether he is alive or not. His disappearence meant that there was no one to send Mary and her sibling to school, let alone to buy them food. Later on the family was chased away by their landlord who wanted them to pay rental to him monthly.
This meant this family was left homeless with no one to buy them food. The future of Mary became very bleak because there was no one to help them. Thank God for the support from Bright Hope World for the transformation centre. This family began to come to the transformation centre to get food and clothes and eventually the children were helped to go to school. Some church people opened their home for this homeless family to have a place to live in.
When Mary was sent back to school through the support from Bright Hope World, she began to be committed to education such that she was the best student in her class and was awarded a trophy towards the end of last year for being the overall best student in ‘O’ level . Imagine, this is the girl who was left homeless, out of school and with no clothes but the support brought back all the confidence and the dreams that she had lost. She aspires to be a lawyer after school. She is currently waiting for her ‘O’ level results in February 2018. She is going to continue with education once the results are out. Thank you very much Bright Hope World for all the support you are rendering to these children.
Challenges:
1) The centre does not have permanent teachers so we rely much on volunteers who come whenever they have time to teach and help the children to study
2) There is a need for computers and smart phones for these children as these are some of the requirements for children in our new education curriculum
3) Some of the children live far away from the centre so the distance becomes a stumbling block for some of them to be able to be fully helped by our staff members
4) The centre does not have a wifi to help the students be able to research on different subject areas
5) The centre has only one income generating project which is a market garden and there is a great need for more sustainable projects for the transformation centre
Recommendations:
1) Long term qualified volunteers should be sought after by Fountain of Hope and its partners
2) More sustainable income generating projects should be run for the centre to be able to generate its own income
3) The centre has been doing a great job of bringing doctors to provide free health check-ups and the community would like to recommend this to take place at least once per term so that the children and the adults be in good health
Fountain of Hope would like therefore to appreciate Bright Hope World for all the support that they are rendering to us for without their support we could not have achieved what we have achieved so far. We would like also to appreciate the Church and Community leaders for their co-operation in working with us in improving the quality of life in their communities. Thank you to different churches and pastors in all the communities who are doing a great job of discipling people and communities. Thank you also to the great team that we are working with in transforming Zimbabwe, one community at a time.
Thank you
Gideon & Jennifer on behalf of Fountain of Hope team