Posts in category: Youth Well Being

The new year is upon us and children are now in school in Zimbabwe. We are paying their school fees at the end of January. That is one week away! If you haven’t let us know that you would like to sponsor one or more children for our Youth Well Being Program (includes health education, medical care, school fees, extracurricular activities), please do so right away! Just yesterday I had to send an email to our teams in Zimbabwe with the worst possible news – that, based on current available funds, they will have to remove over 280 children from enrollment in school. If you have forgotten to notify us, please do so right away. These kids count on our help to go to school. Remember, any amount will help (see https://ancient-ways.org/?page_id=38 for background or https://ancient-ways.org/?page_id=1789 for online payments). Even if you can’t quite sponsor one child, if you can help at all, you will make a difference. Thank you!

This 2011 video clip shows the joy of the girl guides who received 3 pair of panties in response to our “Underwear for Over There” Campaign. Many more girls received underwear but were not present at this Girl Guides Life Skills Learning Retreat in late August. In 2012, we our expanding the campaign to be “Underwear and Monthly Care for Over There” to help meet the personal health needs of our young women.

Our Nhimbe Marimba team was invited to participate at the annual prize-giving day at two of our local primary schools visit homepage. Prize-giving days are an event held each year at schools in Zimbabwe to recognize the outstanding students. Some of our own Nhimbe students were among the recipients of the awards! Our boys and girls provided a marvelous performance! Normally they play marimba, sing, dance accompanied by drums and hosho. We were able to rent a truck for the cost of mileage reimbursement and get the marimbas moved easily. Not really sure how all of the children got to the schools but am assuming they walked since its a small truck. This great performance resulted in another invitation for the November 22nd at a Secondary school within about 20 kilometers from our Center. This will be another opportunity for the boys and girls to shine! We have written a grant requesting help with our Nhimbe marimba program from Zimfest Association and if we succeed we will be able to provide the marimbas with much needed restoration. Its very exciting to hear about the growth of the children and their ability to perform!

Our Nhimbe library is open on Tuesdays, Fridays and Saturday and we have been having a sizeable number of people coming and utilizing the many books in our library. We are continuously looking for a lasting policy to safeguard our books as well as making it flexible for people to have access to our books and read for themselves. As of now, people come to the library, read books within our premises and return the book the same day.

We are looking into alternative ways to improve the reading population in our community.  Several years ago we lent books just like US libraries do but we met with a quantity of theft and a lack of understanding.  Many books have come to the library via annual trips bearing suitcases.  We have now been sponsored by a non-profit who will cover the postage to allow us to send books in the mail, although the costs are quite high.

Our library is short of some set of books now being used in schools and would like to obtain them to make life more comfortable for our kids who are going to school.  Typically 5 or more children share one school book.  This would require a donation of several hundreds of dollars to furnish the library with these books.

Our Boys Program Leader reports that “We now have 62 boys that participate in the Boy Scout Machapro program. Last school holiday they inaugurated the boys scout camp that saw boys coming together and learn life skills and wisdom from the elderly who graced the occasion. The interaction gave the platform for the boy child to air their concerns and many questions as they grow up.  Wonderful contributions came from the elderly who gave words of advice on the many cultural dynamics and expectations for a boy in his path to become the man that he should be.”

Upper Grades – We now have a qualified Law practitioner and two female Bachelor of Arts graduates coming out of the village children who have gone through our sponsorship programs.  We currently have two University graduates returning for further advanced level education.

Secondary Exam Fees – We also managed to pay examination fees for a total of 24 Form 4 students in both projects.  In Zimbabwe the student’s family is required to pay a fee so they can take the exam required for graduation from grade 7 but most critically from Form 4 Secondary School.

Primary and Secondary – School begins in January and ends in December in Zimbabwe. This year we have sponsored close to 80 students within our Jangano project in Dewedzo, Rusape, and a total of near 390 Nhimbe for Progress kids in Mhondoro. We struggled to keep our older Jangano students enrolled as the school districts raised their fees to be outside of our budget – many had to leave our program.

Preschoolers – Additionally we had a total of 83 children enrolled in the Nhimbe Preschool, which includes 44 boys and 39 girls. The preschooler’s attendance has been very satisfactory overall and above the usual even though there was some cold winter weather in June through August.