January 2016

The Chinhoyi Secondary school now has their first ever classroom block! The building, completed in 2015, consists of 3 large rooms housing 3 different year groups.

The secondary school is small when compared to the primary school (950 children vs 300 children). This is due to the rise in fees children face upon entering the high school. Unfortunately, many families are no longer able to afford school, and many young teenagers are sent out to work, or worst, become young brides and mothers.

We are working with the school and parents to educate families of the risks involved in taking these desperate routes. Encouraging them to keep their children in education is part of a long-term plan to stop the poverty cycle.

Thanks to our friends Fredrik & Derek, in 2015 we managed to fund school fees for 55 of these children. This has paid for their entire high school education!

The money received was then used to build their first ever classroom block, which was opened for use on 11th January 2016.

We would like to say a very sincere thank you to all our loyal supporters! We have had such a wonderful response to our plea to continue and expand the Feeding Programme.

The children we work with in Chinhoyi are from very deprived families who struggle to survive. This means many children often arrive at school extremely hungry.

Our Feeding Programme has already brought relief to so many of these children. However, in 2015 we were only able to feed the very youngest children at Chinhoyi Primary. This meant that we had to turn away the older children, who were also hungry.

However, the severity of the problem with all children attending the school was soon realised. The Headmaster found out that some children were going without food for periods of up to two days.

Because of your recent support, we are happy to say that we can now continue the programme into 2016. Not only this, we can now also make the programme available to the WHOLE primary school! Thanks to your donations, we can ensure the older children are also well-fed and ready to thrive in their learning!

2016 still looks to be another difficult time with more drought predictions. However with your loyalty and support we can bring light and hope to their lives!

Our aim is to expand the programme to the neighbouring schools in this deprived, rural area, where more children are faced with hunger every day. Providing food will help improve these children’s concentration and performance at school. It will also give them further incentive to attend their classes rather than going out to work or beg.