Report on Fountain of Hope Zimbabwe Projects

Our hearts are really grateful to you and your team for partnering with us in improving the quality of life of children and adults from downtrodden communities. The projects that we are involved in are undoubtedly bringing life and joy to people from these communities. For example, the people of Madzivire village who used to struggle throughout the year due to lack of food are now able to grow crops for their families throughout the year. 

Please find herein below some of the areas that Fountain of Hope is having an impact in rural downtrodden communities of Zimbabwe, thank you so much Bright Hope World: 

Recent Events

Farming God's Way / Foundations for Farming

Our greatest aim is to improve household food security in poor communities from region 5 of Zimbabwe. Hunger and starvation is honestly the order of the day in these communities because the rainfall they receive yearly is very little and therefore cannot sustain crops. Foundations for farming is a very wonderful tool that has got high probability of maintaining moisture in the soil up until the harvest time. The people are also taught how to use natural manure to enrich their soil. Many people, especially in communities like Nemauzhe (ZIM02h), Makamure (ZIM02c) and Chirogwe (ZIM02f), do not have cows for manure, so they rely mostly on humus from the bush to make their poor soil become good for farming.

This past season has not been a very good season since there was very little rain that was received especially by the people of region 5, however we thank God that a big number of them harvested food enough to feed their families up until December 2022. In some communities we introduced crops like sorghum, millet etc. which satisfactorily did very well.

Thank you so much Bright Hope World for making these people living in dry places to have food on their tables. Please see herein below the people who were trained, equipped with inputs and those who harvested something from their fields: 

Makamure (ZIM02c)
No of people trained: 300
No of people equipped with inputs: 180

Nemauzhe (ZIM02h)
No of people trained: 30
No of people equipped with inputs: 30

No of people trained: 50
No of people equipped with inputs: 30

Chikofa (ZIM02e)
No of people trained : 70
No of people equipped with inputs: 20

Coming Season
Our team is really moving at a very wonderful pace in the communities, to such an extent that the District Development Co-ordinator of Chivi District had to release the government's Department of Agriculture person to work with our team in training communities to improve their lives through practicing Foundations for Farming. Our team has not been given time to rest this year as people have been calling them to train them on how to effectively practice Foundations for Farming. It is a blessing that the government of Zimbabwe adopted this way of farming hence we are now doing these programs with the government structures.

People are already preparing their fields for the coming farming season. They are not getting prepared as in working in their fields but are believing God for good and enough rains to sustain their crops. Fields are ready, the farmers are completely prepared, and we are now waiting for the rains. We are so much persuaded that farming is one of the tools to take people out of poverty, lack, hunger and starvation. 

Community Gardens

The gardens were established to improve food security in communities which struggle to receive enough rainfall for the sustenance of their summer crops. We thank God that people from these communities are now able to grow veggies throughout the year and some of them are getting extra money through growing vegetables in their community gardens. We have got gardens in Makamure (ZIM02c), Mtshazo (ZIM02g), Mthombothemba (ZIM02a) and Mandiva (ZIM02d) villages. One of the gardens is not just enabling people to have food but is going a long way in improving the quality of life of those who are HIV/AIDS and are on medication. The garden gives them nutritious food on a daily basis and also provides them with cash since they are able to sell the surplus from their garden. Thank you so much Bright Hope World for bringing life to such people, without these gardens it could be really fatal for some of the people. 

Our desire is to keep on improving the quality of life of people from dry, hot and hopeless communities through the establishment of such gardens, which encourages them to work with their hands on their own soil. The gardens have really been resurrecting hope to everyone in these communities including the youth who struggle a lot to make ends meet. We have trained quite a number of young people in the community of Makamure to practice farming or to run their own gardens and we would like one day to have a special garden for such youth. This will definitely go a long way in reducing the number of young people who are not employed and who are becoming robbers, prostitutes and who get unwanted pregnancies. Each year these youngsters graduate with agriculture certificates, and we thank God that some of them are already doing something on small pieces of land that they have at their homes. 

Community and School Boreholes

One of the things that we desire to see in these poor communities is the increase of access to clean and safe drinking water. These people in climatic region 5 of Zimbabwe have suffered a lot and many of them have died of cholera. This is because of sharing water wells in riverbeds with animals and most of these wells are open. In some of the communities people practice open defecation, so all the dirt will be taken into the river where people get water for drinking and this becomes fatal in the days of the outbreak of water borne diseases. The water projects therefore are to reduce the number of people who drink contaminated water and increase the number of people who drink clean and safe water. 

This year we did one borehole at Chamanhanzva School (Nemauzhe - ZIM02h) where 650 school children, apart from teachers and their families, are now getting better water. The people of this school are already planning to start a small garden which is going to help the students to learn more deeply agricultural subjects. Thank you so much for making this possible. 

Peniel Skills Development for Youth (ZIM02)

Unemployment in Zimbabwe is pegged at 95% and most of the people who are deeply affected by this crisis are the youth. Amongst the youth, the ones from rural areas who did not go further with education are disastrously affected as there is nowhere to go to for employment or even getting a piece job. We decided to start a carpentry training centre for both young girls and boys to increase their chances of getting something to do. We started with a big school of about 21 young people last year and these managed to graduate at the beginning of this year. Some of them like Tatenda have already started using the skill to make a living (read his story in the Personal Story section below). 

Our hearts are really grateful to Bright Hope World for making it possible for Tatenda and his friends to start and finish off the training and now to become independent in life. This program is going to really assist so many young people to have skills and will reduce a number of them from going to neighbouring countries where they are ridiculed and treated unfairly.  A second stream which started at the beginning of this year is now in the eighth month of their first year and the students will do the training for two years. We decided to make the training go for two years because we don’t really want to just give the basics of carpentry, but we would like them to grow and become professionals.  Thank you for providing for food as well as meeting the needs of the teachers for the training. 

Transformational Centres 

These are centres mainly established to minister to orphans and vulnerable children from downtrodden communities of Zimbabwe, especially those from the climatic hot region 5. Some of these children have never been in school before, while others do not go to school because of acute lack at home, others are orphans and vulnerable children who are looked after by their ailing grannies. These children suffer a myriad of challenges and need a comprehensive approach to bring total healing to their lives. Our transformational centres are undoubtedly bringing amazing transformation to these community orphans and vulnerable children. 

Bridging and pre-schools at transformation centres
A bridging school is an educational program meant for children who never have been in school and those who are already teenagers but have never been in school before. It is meant for vulnerable girls who are not sent to school by either their parents or the people they live with. Our first transformation centre is in Mthombothemba community and has about 25 children, who all have never been to school before. We thank God for two volunteers that we have who are helping these children to learn like all other children. Our desire is for these children to finish off school one day and be able to live better lives. Our bridging school teachers are doing a great job of preparing these children to become respected people in society. 

Apart from the bridging school, we also are running two pre-schools and agricultural training for Mthombothemba, Mtshazo and Makamure communities respectively. These transformation centres are miraculously bringing hope and creating a better future for children who did not have a clear future. Our team cook food on a daily basis for these children. Our Makamure transformation centre focuses more on teenagers and out of school youth.

All our transformation centres helped 26 children altogether to acquire their identity documents, thank God that these children believe that they now have a better future. Some of them have already started participating in netball and soccer activities and Fountain of Hope is part of this journey of improving the quality of life of these children. At Chiwanza in Makamure, Fountain of Hope is restoring the dignity of young girls by ensuring that they are monthly provided with sanitary products.

Here are the number of children being ministered to at each and every transformation centre:
Mthombothemba: 130 children
Makamure: 110 children & teenagers
Mtshazo: 45 children 

Thank you so much Bright Hope World for making this work to have a great impact in the lives of children from these communities. Through your support we were able to establish our first bridging school which is a model that many people are trying by all means to follow, our pre-schools are also opening up the eyes not only of the children but even of the people who look after these children.

Education

Mthombothemba children, especially those who are looked after by old grannies, are being supported by Bright Hope World with school fees every school term. This has improved the pass rate at the local school because orphans are able to attend school on daily basis like all the other children. Unfortunately, school fees have gone up for primary school children from $25 to $65 per school term. This means that we are now able to pay only for 8 children from 20 we were paying for before the increase of school fees. 

We are again grateful to Bright Hope for the support that they have been pouring into these wonderful young people.

Peniel Centre Children's Home (ZIM02)

The aim of this home is to provide a home, family, hope and a future to abandoned, abused, neglected and homeless orphans and vulnerable children. We take children from very difficult and hard circumstances, and we bring them to this place as a last resort. We try by all means to get people around us adopt these children into their homes so that they may understand life in a family and not in an institution. These children do not only come to get accommodation but are sent to school and even to universities. We are grateful to Bright Hope World for all the support and help that you are rendering to Peniel Centre children. Most of the children do not have both parents or have one parent or they came to the centre as a result of being abandoned or abused or deserted by parents due to the difficult economic situation that we have been in for many years as Zimbabweans which was made worse by Covid-19. 

Peniel Centre has been having more children come due to the issues of Covid especially in the past two years and we currently have 46 children (small children and teenagers) being cared for. Some of the children were abandoned when their parents left them while others completely lost their parents eventually making the children to remain without parents (see Nomusa's story below). 

Personal Stories

Mrs Sibanda

Madzivire village, who used to struggle throughout the year due to lack of food, are now able to grow crops for their families throughout the year.

Mrs Sibanda (pictured in her garden) is from Madzivire village and used to struggle throughout the year due to lack of food. She had this to say in July this year “As the people of Madzivire we are deeply grateful to God and to Fountain of Hope for coming to rescue us from the twin problems of food insecurity and lack of access to clean drinking water. It has been difficult for years to grow crops in our poor sandy soils, we would grow but get nothing out of our fields due to a myriad of challenges, poor rainfall pattern as well as poor quality soils. We would always receive very little rainfall per year which would not sustain crops as well as make our animals to have drinking water throughout the year. Thank you very much Fountain of Hope that we are able to be grow vegetables even during the hot dry season. There used not be joy in my homestead but thank God that there is unspeakable joy manifested daily in my family because there is food as well as clean and safe drinking water”.    

Tatenda

Tatenda grew up in the outskirts of Bulawayo with his mother and father who are both mentally unwell. Their home was one room made up of zinc iron sheets which he shared with his parents and four siblings. They all survived on begging for food from the streets of Bulawayo. There was no money for him to go to school but thank God that Fountain of Hope through Bright Hope World assisted him to go to school up until his fourth year of high school.

At high school, he didn’t get the subjects needed for him to proceed with education. He became stranded as there was no food at home, no money to take him further with education, no money for clothes etc. There was really a big ray of hope presented to him when the Skills Development Program was initiated right in the middle of the challenges of COVID that young people were going through. Tatenda was the first person to be included in the program and thank God that he was committed to the end, where he was awarded with a certificate.

It is our pleasure to report that this young man got a carpentry job soon after the graduation. He now has a neat room that he is renting, an incentive at the end of month, and is able to buy food for himself. Thank you again Bright Hope World for giving this young man an opportunity of studying and now he is living an independent life. 

Nomusa

Nomusa was born to Zimbabwean parents who had gone to South Africa to look for greener pastures. The father became a truck driver while the mother survived by selling wares in the streets of Johannesburg. When Covid came the mother left her child and the father on their own and disappeared into thin air. Unfortunately, after the disappearance of the mother, the father caught Covid and did not survive. He died leaving this young girl with no one to look after her in this foreign land. When people decided to make this young girl go back to Zimbabwe, they also found out that there was nowhere they could send her to, hence eventually she was brought to Peniel Centre. 

Comments

Fountain of Hope would like to take this time to appreciate Bright Hope World for all the support that you are rendering to communities and the children under our care. We thank God that the children and the communities are undoubtedly giving their lives to God. These projects are really going a long way in transforming communities for God. 

Thank you
Gideon, Jennifer & team