400 children in the marginalized Matabeleland rural areas of Zimbabwe walk 20 kilometers to and fro to the nearest high school. As a result of the inevitable exhaustion, their education suffers tremendously and the dropout rate is very high. The vulnerable children also get raped along the way and sometimes submit to forced sex with motorists who pretend to offer free rides. HIV infections and teenage pregnancy is high. Construction of the school nearby will ease the burden on these children.
Children from four different villages have to walk 10 kilometres to reach the nearest school. This affects their learning capabilities as they are always exhausted. This has resulted in low literacy levels within the community and an increase in the school dropout rate. Girls are the most vulnerable as they are prone to rape or submit to forced sex with motorists who pretend to offer free rides to the burdened pupils. This increases the risk of HIV infections and teenage pregnancies.
Construction of a high school will help provide a closer learning facilities and a conducive learning environment for 400 children in Madabe ward. It is anticipated that this project will help improve literacy levels and also reduce school dropout rate. Positive outcomes will not be realized in the Dukwe community alone but the district at large.
About 400 children of high school age will have immediate access to further education in their vicinity. Future generations will benefit from this project in the long term. For all of them, this will be a tremendous boost to their school attendance and thus their opportunities in life. The health of these children will improve because of less exhaustion. Sexual abuse of young girls will decrease which will also reduce the rate of HIV infections and teenage pregnancies.
This project has provided additional documentation in a Microsoft Word file (projdoc.doc).
