Zimbabwe, Africa

ZIM02a - Fountain of Hope - Mthombothemba Community Development: Partnership Reports

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Report Date: August 8, 2016

Update from Gideon

Recent Events

Garden Received Recognition

I would like to let you know that one of our gardens in Mthombothemba community received a recognition by the Foundations for Farming Head Office in Zimbabwe as one of the gardens that shows the best practices of Foundations for Farming in the dry southern part of Zimbabwe. They called it an oasis in the dry arid land of Southern Zimbabwe. They have already put it on their Facebook account and we have been receiving phone calls from communities and schools within Matabeleland province who would like to learn from us.

We are praying that we eventually will be able to make it a resource training centre for all the surrounding communities and schools. We are very much grateful to you for all your support and for giving us the opportunity to learn about farming God's way principles which we are now using to make a difference in the dry areas that we are working in.

Auction

great produce Our orphan volunteers auctioned some of the produce from this garden last weekend to the members of the community, including the community leadership, as a way of encouraging them to practice farming God's way in their fields. One of the biggest head of cabbages was bought for $10 (it is normally sold for $0.50) and a bucket of tomatoes was sold for $20 (normally sold for $3 this season). Attached is a photo of a cabbage from the garden that was sold to a truck driver for $10.

This garden, though small, is going a long way in teaching the community how to practice organic farming. The money that was raised at this auction is going to be used to send 12 orphan children to a career guidance workshop in Harare.

Ideas for the Future

We have already dug some planting stations for trees at the garden to see whether fruit trees do work or not. We would like to engage all the communities that we work in, in tree planting programs, especially fruit trees, once we have seen it working well in our demonstration centre.

We are also working on raising up co-ordinators for each community out of the church pastors and leaders we work with from these communities, whom we will train so that they can train others.

Comments

Thank you Bright Hope World for partnering with us in touching lives and brightening the future of poor communities. Our desire is to turn this part of Zimbabwe GREEN, village by village.

Blessings

Gideon & Jennifer