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 Chirogwe community :
This is a fairly new community that Fountain of Hope have commenced working in. It is a community in Chivi district of Masvingo province and is in ward 18. The councillor of the community welcomed Fountain of Hope very well and is excited about the possibility of having an organisation that works in their community. The community has got so many orphans and widows and only has one health centre which doesn’t have a maternity ward. Water is one of the biggest challenges in this community, the whole ward has got very few boreholes even though it is one of the largest ward in Chivi district. This area is mountainous and very dry and it is sometimes difficult to get ground water because of the rocks all around. Fountain of Hope and Bright Hope World have just started working in this community and find below the projects that we have undertaken so far :
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The fact that this place is mountainous means it receives better rainfall than Mandiva and Makamure communities. The soil is also not as bad as that of the other two communities and there is great hope that these people will do well in farming if they are able to grasp the principles of Farming God's Way. 30 people have been trained so far and equipped with maize seed to do farming. Most of the people who were trained and equipped in this community are church people and are quite confident that they will lead by example.
Impact
The impact of the program is going to be noticed at the end of this farming season. The community however is calling for prayers for rain because there has been a heatwave that has cut across the whole of Zimbabwe and which has made the rain not to come. The community last received meaningful rainfall in mid–December and has not received any since then.
Challenges
Rain is the biggest challenge in this community. The other challenge is that some of the beneficiaries of this project are old widows who need other people to help in their fields.
Recommendations
- The councillor recommended the farming program to be taught in all his area since he realised that it conserves soil and the environment
- People to be encouraged to grow trees to compliment the farming program
- Since this place is in region 5 of Zimbabwe the community should be encouraged to build small dams which will harvest rain water for small to medium gardens which shall take people out of hunger
- The water sources are very few, Fountain of Hope and Bright Hope World are therefore requested to consider assisting people of this community to have access to clean and safe drinking water
- Foundations for Farming should also be taught at school so that children may grow up knowing and loving farming
- Those trained should be awarded with a farming certificate as a way of encouraging them
This project is commencing at the beginning of January 2018
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