VOCATIONAL TRAINING FOR 200 ZIMBABWEAN ORPHANS

Greetings from Zimbabwe, where winter has ended and the heat has begun. We are hoping the experts’ predictions of severe drought will not come to pass. Last year’s drought left millions of people without sufficient food. Staple food shortages and price hikes are now the norm.

 Generally, our updates to you are about programs and challenges, and we thought that this month we should show you what those programs actually mean in the lives of the young people of Zimkids. The clearest way to paint you that picture is with the story of a single young person whose life has been dramatically changed.

 Ngqabutho joined Zimkids in 2008, when he was 11 years old. His father, Innocent, had died two years earlier, and his mother struggled. That was a difficult time, then, for a first-born son who assumed he’d carry the family mantle. His name means “heir,” and although he had two older sisters, in African tradition, gender always trumps age.

 Of course, Ngqabutho had no idea how he’d do that. All he could think of was to become a policeman. But his first experience with the cops was anything but positive. When he was 14, while walking to church on a Saturday afternoon, he was accosted by a group of neighborhood thugs who were playing soccer. “Run and get that ball,” they ordered him after it rolled off into the bush. When Ngqabutho did not hear them, one of the young men stabbed him in the back, missing his lungs by less than an inch. Ngqabutho knew who his attacker was, as did the police. But they refused to do anything because the thugs not only terrify the neighborhood; they terrify the authorities.

 In 2010, when Ngqabutho’s mother, Thoko, died, he no longer had to worry about supporting his family. He was too young to do so at that point, and the responsibility fell squarely on the shoulders of his sister, Sithabisiwe, who was 17 years old. With Zimkids’ help, she kept Ngqabutho and his younger brother on the straight and narrow.

 When Ngqabutho finished high school in 2013, he immediately joined Zimkids’ training program. He not only learned to weld and apprenticed with both a plumber and electrician, but he became an integral part of the training team that built our sewing center in 2014, mastering everything from laying a foundation to brickwork, painting and plaster. He also constructed our bookcases and security door and was part of the small group that created our amazing zipper sculpture.

 Now, at the age of 18, Ngqabutho watches his old friends from high school and from his neighborhood hanging out at the local shops, or wandering the streets aimlessly, without skills or jobs. He, on the other hand, is overseeing all of our center’s plumbing, our greenhouse and orchard, and maintaining our drip irrigation system as well as the wiring of our electric grid. Trained in computers, he’s also responsible for submitting monthly reports about those areas of responsibility.

 A fervent soccer player in his free time, Ngqabutho, is honing his skills with tremendous excitement and dedication. The Zimbabwean economy appears to be plummeting once again with even more businesses closing their doors and government squeezing the few that remain. But when things begin to improve yet again, we’re confident that Ngqabutho will be ready to train his replacement and move out into the world of work.

Other news: Tinashe Basa, our director is now in the USA meeting with schools, civic groups and churches in our annual fundraising and outreach to American school children. See video link below.

     We are sad to inform you that Pritchard died on September 10 after a lifelong illness at age 15. He knew brief periods of happiness with us at Zimkids. We are making sure his younger brother, Praymore is well taken care of.

Links:

• For the latest news
• Zimkids outreach to American school kids

Things are rolling at Zimkids, with young people tiling and planting, learning car repair and boilermaking, and using their new skills to keep our facility in tiptop shape!

But let me back up and give you the full picture. From the first, the goal of our training program was to help our kids gain skills on which to build their futures, which meant skills that would provide them with food, with the possibility of starting their own businesses, or finding employment. The latter possibility narrowed our focus dramatically since there are so few jobs in an economy in which less than 10 percent of the population is formally employed. And since people are so poor, demands for services are extremely limited. We’ve been careful, then, to home in on areas where there is some service demand.

I should interject here that teaching young people to grow food in more efficient and productive ways is part of this program because almost everyone in Zimbabwe, rural AND urban, plants gardens to reduce their need for cash. Given the lack of rain for almost eight months a year, though, they cannot maximize their garden space. So by teaching them about drip irrigation, composting, and greenhouses, we not only produce food for the children who come to the Center but teach the children new ways to plant year-round. So we bought the cement blocks, mixed gravel and cement for the foundation and built two new 18-meter raised beds. Ngqabutho learned plumbing and added an extension to our existing drip irrigation system extending it outside the greenhouse. Our trainees filled the beds with our own compost to add to our production of vegetables. So our vegetables thrive in the middle of Zimbabwe’s dry winter.

Early this year, Dennis worked with a group of young people on tiling, a skill for which there is some demand. As we often do, part of that training was a tiling project at our Center, in this case, our bathroom floors. They had been polished concrete, but the price of continually waxing floors over a year exceeded the cost of tiling. So we opted for saving money and providing a great training project. This time Dennis wasn’t there and they did a stellar job tiling to perfection.

And we continue to train all the older kids in welding and basic construction skills – and they get some experience since we’re always fixing or building something!

Finally, we don’t want to limit ourselves to training in skills that we already have. So, several years ago, we began sending young people for courses – in welding, electricity, early childhood education, counseling and nurse’s aid programs. This year, we broadened our focus a bit, and Shaun is training to be a car mechanic and Peter is learning boilermaking (which includes advanced welding and other skills).

I should probably end by saying that Collin and Foster, two of our first trainees, who learned about everything from laying foundations to roofing, bricklaying and solar energy, now have their own business. After training with us and being hired by a local solar installer, they continue to be his subcontractor while taking on their own jobs – and, yes, they are passing it on by hiring younger Zimkids and training them!

If you have any questions or concerns please feel free to contact us at dennis@zimkids.com.  

Links:

• The latest Zimkids news