Report Following Evaluation Meetings with Community Leaders and Pastors

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 Mtshazo community :

Mtshazo 

Mtshazo is a community in Matabeleland South Province of Zimbabwe. The community is 120km away from Bulawayo town and was one of the communities which saw many people being killed during the Zimbabwe Gukurahundi massacre between 1983 and 1987. Development was stalled in this community during this time of civil war and many young people left Zimbabwe for South Africa. The community has not had any meaningful harvest from their fields due to very erratic rains that they receive each year. Therefore the community is characterized by underdevelopment, hunger, starvation, high HIV/AIDS incidences (the highest in Zimbabwe), and many orphans and vulnerable children. The war also caused people of this community not to trust one another, therefore it has been very difficult to bring people together and talk about development. They had already given up on farming because they never had a meaningful harvest over many years. Their maximum rainfall per year is always below 150mm.

Many young people of this community do not finish school as most of them do not have enough fees to go to school or schools are not easily accessible. Qualified teachers do not want to go into such communities and this has caused some of the schools in the area to have 0% pass rate in national exams. This is the community that Fountain of Hope is daring to transform for God's glory. Please find below what we have done so far in Mtshazo.

Foundations for Farming

Number of people trained and equipped – 45

The people of this community had given up on farming so this program is reviving the passion for farming amongst the members of this community. 45 people were trained and equipped with farming seeds to start practicing Foundations for Farming. The people who were trained include one community leader and two church leaders who are very excited about this program and believe that this is one of the ways of breaking the cycle of poverty.

Impact: There is great excitement in the community about this project and those who were trained have already started recruiting others to join the program. The full impact is going to be seen after the harvest in May this year.

Challenges: The community again received very little rainfall this season and most of the crops that the people had grown are already showing signs of wilting.

Possible Solutions: The community proposes the drilling of boreholes or building up of small dams to practice small-scale irrigation to improve food security in the community. The gardens will also go a long way in reducing the number of men who leave their homes for South Africa to look for jobs. This will also help in reducing the spread of HIV/AIDS in the community as families will be able to live together.

Transformation Centre

Number of children in this transformation centre – 35

The children in this community find it so difficult to go to school especially during the rainy season as they have to cross one of the biggest rivers in Matabeleland South Province. This has been causing many children not to go to school all the time hence the community and Fountain of Hope came up with a plan to establish a transformation centre where children who cannot go to school would come to this centre to learn like all other children. The transformation centre has one committed teacher and its already recognised by the Ministry of Education.

Impact: Children who used not to go to school are now catered for. The transformation centre is going a long way in improving the quality of education in the community amongst the infants of the area. Many other communities in the region who have the same problem are beginning to learn from this centre. At this centre children without identity documents are being assisted.

Challenges: The teacher wants to give these children agricultural skills at their tender ages but the problem is that there is no source of water for them to start agricultural lessons. The other challenge is that there is no building so the children learn under the shade of a tree which is a big problem during the rainy, windy and cold days for the children.

Recommendations:
- The community to build up a make-shift classroom
- There is need for a borehole and a garden to produce green veggies for the children who come to the transformation centre

Appreciation

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