By Dennis Gaboury | Founder, Chair, Board of Trustees
We at Zimkids hope this fionds you well and happy!
And now the latest news:
In Zimbabwe, parents and teachers push children to finish secondary school, then continue on to the Advanced Level and strive to go to University. The belief that more education will guarantee a good future is so firmly embedded in the culture that it is rarely questioned. But as the leadership of ZimKids looked around, we found university Honors graduates working at fast food restaurants and young people with Masters Degrees driving taxis.
Should we push our young people, most of whom spent at least three years without much education because of constant strikes, to sit their high school graduation exams again and again? Should they be made to feel futureless is they continued to fail?
Of course, continued formal education is the right path for some of our beneficiaries. But most needed to find other ways to build their futures. Deciding to buck the trend freed us to think more creatively, which led to our vocational training programs.
The lynchpin of that program has been multi-skills training in construction. Trainees learn how to design and lay out foundations, mix cement, pour foundations, lay block and brick, plaster, paint, weld, install electrical circuits, and install solar panels and batteries. This broad approach flies in the face of the long tradition here of narrowly skilled workers, and it has already won us plaudits from local businesses. The largest solar energy installation company has been using two of our first trainees, Foster and Colin, for much of their work – and the owner adores them precisely because they can do almost anything.
When Foster and Colin are not working for the solar company, they are helping with the upkeep of our center and, most importantly, training younger boys to replace them and to deal with problems when they are not onsite (which we hope will be an increasingly common situation.) Currently, they are taking the lead in the building of our new Sewing Center, a new vocational training program that will generate income both for Zimkids and the young people who choose to train there through the production of mandatory school uniforms. This time, then, they are the supervisors, the planners, the instructors for the younger builders.
Simultaneously, a group has begun building the scaffolding we need, our security doors, and the frames for our furniture. As they did when we were building the Center in the first place, they are learning not only how to weld but how to be creative in designing necessary elements. Our security door, then, was welded into a gigantic zipper.
We work hard to offer our beneficiaries at least a taste of a variety of vocational opportunities, and at the moment, Nkosikhona and Thandi have been putting their major energy into computers. As they begin mastering html and video editing, you’ll begin to see what Tinashe, our director, can lead them to create.
Finally, almost everyone puts some time in to our greenhouse, which is giving them a taste of the world of permaculture. Initially, we installed both the greenhouse and a drip irrigation system. This year, after flooding in our beds, we moved to raised beds.
And that’s the story!!!
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