Mtshazo Community Progress Report April 2019

This is one of the driest areas of Zimbabwe which has suffered drought almost every year. It is at long time since the people of this community harvested much from their fields. Due to drought which is caused by lack of rainfall, the community is one of the most downtrodden communities in the whole nation of Zimbabwe.

This is the area in Zimbabwe where the atrocities in the early 80s took place. Many people died during that time leaving children without identity documents and those who were left children are now adults who do not have identity documents. Due to underdevelopment in this community, many people leave the community, especially men, for greener pastures in South Africa and women turn to prostitution. This is the region that has got the highest HIV/AIDS prevalent rate in the whole country of Zimbabwe and therefore there are many orphans and vulnerable children in the community. 

Fountain of Hope is working on coming up with a project to improve the quality of life in this community which will see improvement of the quality of education, improvement of sanitation and increase of water harvesting projects for clean drinking water and production purposes. 

Recent Events

Foundations for Farming

To date Fountain of Hope has had Foundations for Farming projects which we stopped this season after realizing that the community does not receive adequate rain to sustain crops. There is a great need to either drill boreholes in the community or to draw water from the existing dams which are a few miles away from the community so that people may practice farming throughout the year.  At the moment this community and this region is regarded as the area of extreme water scarcity and stress. We are therefore working with the community in reversing all this so that the community may be known as a place of plenty. 

Transformation Centre

The aim of this transformation centre is to improve the education status of the community through running an infant community based school. These children are also helped to get birth certificates and all identity documents that would enable them to participate in the development of their community when they grow up. The transformation centre has 32 children who have been and are being assisted by Bright Hope World through Fountain of Hope. The community is very grateful for this project because their children no longer have to travel long distances to the nearest school and there is no more danger for children to cross the river when it’s flowing to get to the nearest school. 

Challenges
• Getting qualified teachers to teach children in the rural areas is always a challenge as these qualified teachers prefer places where the environment is good
• There is no water for the children, the nearest borehole is a bit far away and it dries up during the summer season 
• There is no building for this infant school so the children get colds especially during the winter season 

Opportunities
• The infant school provides many opportunities for the community to come together and discuss how they can change the situation of their community
• This is one of the communities where people have not been united because of the war and other political differences that they used to have but this transformation centre brings all these people together such that they can discuss together the way forward in the community - it gives people the opportunity to be healed of the past.
• The transformation centre is expected to improve pass rates amongst orphans and vulnerable children