Fountain of Hope June 2015 Update

Thank you very much Bright Hope World for partnering with us in brightening the lives of orphans, vulnerable children and downtrodden communities. Your support is really going a long way in bringing enormous transformation in the two communities that we work in.

Makamure Community

Garden

Pictured to the right is the flourishing garden which we established in Makamure community which is really improving the health of children and adults of this community. The garden is close to a small dam in the community which dried up in January this year as they didn’t receive much rainfall, so there was literally no water entering the silted dam. However the lack of water did not detour this community from moving ahead with the plan of building up a one hectare garden. Their desire has been to have a garden to reduce malnutrition and improve the health status of the community.

The encouraging thing for us is how this community is so geared up to use the resources which they have to improve their quality of life. They worked so hard together with our team members to put up the garden, no outsider was sort to cut down the poles for the garden, they did it themselves. We only bought the fence and the nails.

This garden has been a miracle in this community, for people who used not to work together are now able to do so in the garden. There is a great improvement in community relations because of this garden. When the people of this community realised that there was no water source (the borehole we drilled in this community provides only drinking water) for the garden, they gathered together and opened up a well (see picture) in the sand in the silted dam. Our prayers are to be able to work with the community in scooping their dam so that they can harvest rain water which they can use to irrigate their garden throughout the year. We are praying for finances to have the machinery to do so because the well which they dug in the dam is going to dry up very soon eventually causing everything in the garden to wilt. Through this garden many families have been changed because they now have green veggies for consumption and are able to sell the surplus. Our fears are the community will go back again to the issues of malnutrition once the well in the dam dries up, hence our desire to scoop the whole dam.

Goats

Apart from the garden, we successfully managed to buy 60 goats for a goat loan programme in Makamure this year. 20 families from five different churches were the first beneficiaries of this program which we believe will go a long way in making the vulnerable have a herd of animals as a way of averting hunger and lack in this dry community of Zimbabwe. We are glad to let you know that this project, just like the garden, is making big strides in uniting the Church and the people of the community and reducing the impact of HIV/AIDS in the community, thanks to Bright Hope. 

Foundations for Farming

"Even though this year is a drought year and other people did not get something from their fields due to poor rains received this season, I am so much grateful to Foundations for Farming training, for my family managed to harvest something from our fields. We are not going to buy maize like other people for we have enough to take us through to December”, these were the words of Mr Chigowi (on our evaluation day) who successfully followed the principles of farming God's way for the first time in Makamure and got a harvest in a drought year.

Mr Chigowi (his wife is pictured in their maize field) and a few other farmers in this community who embraced and followed closely this conservation farming are a great testimony in this community about Foundations for Farming. This has led to so many people from different villages approaching their councillor to talk with Fountain of Hope to include everyone in Ward 19 of Chivi in this type of farming. We are working on selecting a few villages to be involved in this project as we cannot take the whole ward which is quite big for our resources. 

Feeding Program

Due to the drought in this province, we have just started a small feeding program in Mandiva village, where we are feeding 25 children twice per week. Our aim is to see these children, and other children from the community, going to school and participating fully in school activities, not being hindered by lack of food or school fees. The Village head is so much appreciative of this initiative for it is going to go a long way in reducing malnutrition as well as help children to remain in school.

All the above projects which are currently taking place in Makamure have positively impacted relations in the community. The community is undoubtedly walking towards unity which will eventually make them be able to do things together. The above projects have led us to work together with the whole community in addressing the issues of health, i.e. training the village health workers, and helping the community to come up with their priority community projects. We have seen the community initiating a number of projects like building a bridge where there was no bridge on their road etc. We are grateful so much to Bright Hope World that through your support this downtrodden community is beginning to rise up. 

With much gratitude

Gideon & Jennifer Chishamba