VOCATIONAL TRAINING FOR 200 ZIMBABWEAN ORPHANS

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.  

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