Fountain of Hope Progress Report August 2018

Fountain of Hope and the leaders of all the communities that are being transformed would like to hereby extend our heartfelt gratitude to Bright Hope World for all the unwavering support being rendered to community projects. We are grateful together with communities that are showing great signs of change even in the midst of challenges that Zimbabwe is going through. Your support is unreservedly lifting up communities out of the doldrums of hunger and poverty and is bringing a ray of hope to orphans and vulnerable children from these communities. There is great improvement of food security in some of the communities that we have been working in for the past three years, an increase of orphans and vulnerable children who are now attending school and also an increase of health deliveries in some of the communities in region 5 of Zimbabwe which we are working in.

Thank you so much Bright Hope World that you are partnering with us in improving the quality of life in these communities. Please find herein below the report on Peniel Children's Home.  

Recent Events

Situation in Zimbabwe

On the 30th of July Zimbabweans held parliamentary and presidential elections and the ruling party was declared winner but the main opposition party has contested the results. Following this announcement tension arose in the capital city that resulted in the death of six people and hundreds more were left injured when the army fired live ammunition on fleeing unarmed civilians. The irony of it is that in November last year when the army ousted Robert Mugabe who ruled Zimbabwe for almost four decades people went on to the streets and hugged the soldiers in celebrations. A few months down the road the army has returned shooting at the very citizens who hugged them! Zimbabweans are yearning for real, tangible, long lasting, positive change not the piecemeal we have seen so far. The church in Zimbabwe is getting united to pray for this great nation to receive its salvation.

All these happenings in the country have affected the economy of the country and we have seen inflation rising up again, goods and services are now very expensive and our bond dollar which is supposed to be equivalent to a US$ has been devalued by over 50%. This has prompted many organisations to decide to open bank accounts outside the country and Fountain of Hope is also doing the same thing.   

Peniel Children's Home

Peniel Centre is a home to abandoned and abused children from in and around the city of Bulawayo. The centre takes care of 26 children who all come from different difficult circumstances. Some of the children were raped before they came to Peniel Centre while others were dumped and others were physically and emotionally abused before they came to the centre. Fountain of Hope would like to hereby appreciate Bright Hope World for all the support that is rendered to Peniel Centre. 

Aim: Providing hope, a family and a future for orphans 

Impact/Vision: 
Orphaned children have (as a result of FHF work) :
• Full physical health
• Emotional stability and health
• Spiritual exposure and input of the Gospel
• Best educational level they can achieve
• Direction for future work and income through further studies or skills training
• Long term support from a strong family connection (within a church)

Activities:
1) Physical Health
• Provide three nutritious meals a day (in the homes) 

2) Psychological Emotional & Spiritual Development
• Provide counselling support from caregivers trained in counselling for orphaned children
• Train caregivers in counselling for orphaned children
• Train all staff and support staff in children's home with attachment rich parenting strategies that are effective in creating deep healing for children who have experienced grief and loss
• When needed provide added counselling to children and caregivers and additional parenting support to caregivers 

3) Social integration
• Connecting children with known relatives for children in the homes during school holiday (supervised process)
• Encouraging church members (families) to connect, visit, take children for holidays, outings etc to build relationships

4) Education & Training
• Provide funds for school fees
• Develop links with businesses and employers to provide opportunities for trial apprenticeships and work experience
• Develop a scholarship fund to support selected orphans with academic ability to gain access to higher education

5) Family Support
• Connect each child to a family in the OVC supporting church
• Develop a long term connection for each orphan to a family
• Develop commitment from Christian families to become ‘god-parents’ to an orphan in the children’s home to provide a place of refuge, care and support in holidays and in the future after the child has left the home

Outcomes:
1) Physical Health & Wellbeing
• Children receive three nutritious meals daily in homes

2) Personal Psychological & Emotional Development
• Each child has the opportunity to work through and experience healing of neglect, bereavement, abuse etc.
• Each child becomes a fully balanced adolescent with solid values and interpersonal skills

3) Social integration
• Supervised visits, church members taking children and actively involved in the lives of the children
• Behaviours expected of socialised children being observed

4)  Education & Training
• Children achieve education results to the best of their ability and vocational training where needed.
• All children find long term employment which will support themselves and their family in the future.

5) Family Support
• Families volunteering to connect and bring children into their homes particularly for those in homes

Self-Sustainable Projects

Peniel Centre thrives to be able to produce food on its own and also pass skills to all the children at the centre. Our children are taught how to practice Foundations for Farming, how to run a garden project, and how to run a livestock management project.

Currently Peniel Centre runs two gardens, a broiler chicken project, cattle and goat projects. All these projects are going a long way in making the children have different skills which will help them in life after Peniel Centre. 

Challenges

Ever since the new dispensation in Zimbabwe, prices of goods and services went up to a point that some commodities have more than doubled their prices. This is a big challenge especially when it comes to the education of the children, uniforms, stationery, shoes, fees and levies have all gone up.

Education becomes more expensive especially when the children reach the tertiary level.

The market for the garden produce sometimes gets flooded thereby suppressing the prices downwards. 

Recommendations

• The centre needs to find volunteer teachers to help children study at home
• Children should be given entrepreneurial skills through being attached to various business people in Bulawayo
• The centre should consider running a taxi business so that it has a daily income generating project
• The broiler chicken project has to be increased so that the centre can at least produce between 2500 and 5000 broilers per 6 weeks
• The centre need new beds because the ones that Peniel has are very old for they have been used since 2008
• Peniel Centre must have a wing that focuses on skills development so that those who are aging out of the centre are given necessary skills to make a living outside the centre 

Thank you so much Bright Hope World for all the support you are rendering to this centre.

With much gratitude
Gideon & Jennifer Chishamba (for Fountain of Hope team)