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.

Child marriages have been abolished in communities like Makamure and Mthombothemba and young girls are now respected in the communities. This is going a long way in combating the spread of HIV/AIDS in these communities. The communities have got very strong child protection committees which are working flat out to ensure that children’s rights are upheld. Children are encouraged to go to school, acquire birth-certificates, provided with psycho-social support to bring complete healing to them and the Transformation Centres that we established in these communities are doing a great job in providing such to the children. Our Transformation Centres have decreased the number of children who die of HIV/AIDS and have increased the number of children who are on HIV/AIDS health drugs.

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 Makamure.  

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.  

Community Leaders Training

Fountain of Hope spent the months of June and July training 25 community leaders and church leaders on how to facilitate a church and community transformation process. These leaders were pulled from all the communities that Fountain of Hope works with. The training took place in the community of Makamure and all these leaders are expected to go back to their communities and work with their communities on how to come up with a 5 year action plan for their communities. The 25 were awarded with certificates after the training and the graduation was attended by the chief and the councillors of the area.  

Makamure Community

Makamure means division and the people of this community, which is found in Chivi district of Masvingo province, have been living a life of division for many decades. The community is very much grateful for the work that Bright Hope World has done through its partner Fountain of Hope in bringing people together. The community does not only work together but are able to meet together and discuss the way forward as far as development of the area is concerned. The walls of division are being destroyed slowly but surely, for instance the people of this community met together to work on making the road so that there can be transport into the community. The transformation centre that is run in the community was as a result of the input of the community. The community garden in Madzivire village and the new garden in Masvingise were both as a result of the community input. 

This community has over 19,000 people and has 37 villages altogether. Fountain of Hope has only been working with seven villages so far but the community leaders would like to see Fountain of Hope extending its support to all the other villages of the community. At the last evaluation meeting, the community leaders (pictured with Gideon) narrated how the community has got so many struggles which they would like Fountain of Hope and its partner Bright Hope World to consider supporting.

One of the two secondary schools in the community has got an enrolment of 700 children with over 30 teachers and yet there is no source of clean drinking water for the school as well as for school agricultural programs. The teachers and the school children get their water for drinking from the nearest dam that has crocodiles which pose as a big threat to the children and teachers as well. Many qualified teachers have been running from the school because of this problem, thereby causing the school to have the lowest pass rate in the whole district of Chivi. The community’s aim is to improve the pass rate at this school from 0% last year to 50% by year 2020. There is therefore a need for a borehole at the school to lure more qualified teachers to come to teach their children.

Please find below more of what has been happening in Makamure and what their aspirations are: 

Foundations for Farming

85 people were trained and equipped with maize seed in the last farming season but this is just a drop in a bucket of all the families in the whole area. It is with great gratitude to God and to the commitment of these 85 families that we would like to report that 50% of these families did very well in their fields and have got food to feed their families up until the next farming season. This was even noticed by the District Administrator who is already going around encouraging communities in Chivi district to practice this way of farming. The community is slowly fighting out hunger that had caused untold suffering in the community. 

Impact 
• There is really an increase of food security per household level
• They are no longer relying on food aid as they have their own food in their barns
• This has also increased the number of children who are attending school as they are able to have food on daily basis
• Their commitment was noticed by the highest office in the district and the program is now cascading into other villages and communities 

Challenges
• Mulch is always the challenge in this community as there is no grass in the bush
• Fields are not fenced and cows and goats eat up people’s mulch during the summer season
• There is no market close by for people to sell their maize to begin to make profit out of their fields 

Ways of Consolidating the Project 
• More people of the community from other villages to be trained as well and also to be equipped with more seeds so that we fight out hunger and starvation in the whole community
• The community to be given ideas on how to grow grass and more trees whose leaves would be used as mulch in their fields
• A community based barn should be established so that the people who would have better would be able to come over and sell their produce
• Fountain of Hope and its partners should consider using the demonstration plot that was provided by the chief for training  

Nutrition Gardens

The Makamure nutrition garden has 105 people, all from three villages of the community. The garden is going a long way in providing people with nutritious vegetables all year round. Apart from providing them with green veges all the time, the garden also provides the community with some income since they sell some of the produce to other villages which do not have gardens. As well as the main garden for people from three main villages, Fountain of Hope and the community have just established a second garden in Masvingise village of Makamure. This garden is for people who live with HIV/AIDS. The main aim of the garden is to reduce the impact of HIV/AIDS on affected families of Makamure through food security projects and creation of a knowledge base for HIV/AIDS. People do not only come to grow crops at this garden but they come to get knowledge on how they can live with HIV/AIDS and on how they can teach others in the community on how to survive with the condition. 

Impact
• Widows and orphans now have food throughout the year
• Young people who do not have employment have something to do as they spend most of their time in the garden
• Information about diseases is being passed on at the garden (it is now a place of receiving relevant information)
• Trainings on various issues are done at the garden and even the headman’s meetings are now done at the garden.

Challenges
• The vegetable market is far away, the nearest town is 80km away from Makamure community
• The second garden relies on water from a pond in the river which dries up in the dry season meaning that the garden will not be operating during the most crucial time of the year. Please see the photo of the pond where the people get their water from for the second garden for the HIV/AIDS support group.

Ways to Consolidate the Project
• There is need to provide the second garden with a better source of water like a borehole so that they can grow crops throughout the whole year
• The creation of a market close to the people is one thing that Fountain of Hope should consider doing
• Fountain of Hope to consider processing and preserving the produce from the garden so that there is nothing that is lost  

Transformation Centre

This transformation centre has got 52 infants and 33 young children who are being assisted by Bright Hope World through Fountain of Hope Foundation. The centre, which was established in Madzivire village, runs a pre-school which caters for grade 0. The children come to this school to learn as well as to be provided with necessary food on a daily basis. This transformation centre is the base for psycho-social support programs, education, birth-certificate application assistance etc.

We thank God to report that the district registrar general agreed to come to Makamure to help the community in acquiring identity documents, so this transformation centre has brought about a lot of smiles on the faces of both young and old people. It is not only the young that were helped to get birth-certificates but also the old.

Impact
• Children who used not to go to school are now part of the education system
• Transport costs were cut when the registrar general’s office came to serve the people in their community
• Children are provided with food each time they come to school

Challenges
• Teachers at this transformation centre are not qualified therefore the level of education is not up to standard
• Most of these children come from homes where they are either child headed or the head is a grandmother who cannot help them to study at home
• A nutritionist is needed to assist in the making of food at the transformation centre 

Ways to Consolidate the Project 
• Parents and guardians to work on paying teachers for the transformation centre
• The transformation centre should have its own library so that those who are in high school can come and study at the centre
• A skills training centre to be established for the young adults so that they can be able to study skills after school especially agricultural skills
• Those who would have undergone skills training should be helped to join different companies or established farms and work as attachés to gain experience
• More transformation centres should be opened in other villages of the community
• The transformation centre should be solarized so that children can be able to come at any time to study, especially at night 

Livestock Production

60 goats were provided to the members of this community which are to revolve around the orphan and vulnerable families. The goats are going a long way in providing milk to young children as their milk is richer in protein than cow's milk. The community is so much grateful that the people of the community who did not have livestock now have some animals at their homes. Training was offered by Fountain of Hope on how to manage animals and how to use them to improve the economic status of the community.

Challenges
• There are so many goat diseases in this area especially during the rainy season and this caused a number of goats to die 

Ways to Consolidate the Project
• Veterinary services should be provided in the community or should be close to the community of Makamure
• More training on how to make cheese out of goat's milk is needed
• Apart from training, partners should consider giving goats to the other villages of Makamure since now it is only three villages that benefit 

Personal Stories

Gardens

This lady pictured with Jennifer got divorced from her husband and was sent away by the husband with her three children. She went to live with her old grannies in Madzivire village where there was no source of income. Thank God that she was also invited by the community leaders to be part of the gardeners. She now sells her vegetables to support her three children and they also eat good food from the garden. The picture shows the beetroot and chomoleaur that she harvested from the garden. Thank you so much Bright Hope World for making this to happen in this community. 

Goat Project

An HIV/AIDS positive young lady became pregnant and eventually gave birth to a wonderful baby boy. According to the HIV/AIDS policy in Zimbabwe, a mother is supposed to breast feed her baby exclusively with the mother's milk for the first six months before weaning the child to solid food. Three months after the birth of the child the mother started to grow some sores on her body including the breasts meaning she wasn’t anymore proper for her to breast feed the child. Thank God that her mother was one of the beneficiaries of the goat project. The goats provided milk to this baby boy and the boy is growing very well. Not only is the baby growing well but thank God the baby didn’t get HIV from the mother.

Comments

Fountain of Hope is so much grateful to Bright Hope World for all the support that you are rendering to this community. 

With much gratitude
Gideon & Jennifer Chishamba (for FHF)