Team Work

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Sacred Hearts Parish Justice and Peace Veronica
Peacocke Thank you for your sacrifices, prayers
and donations for Career Development orphans.
Here are just a few examples of where your help
and prayers go to. We are truly grateful to all
our benefactors, without all of you we could not
possibly do the work God has set before us.
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Hozheri Primary School, rural area near Gweru. 93
orphans being assisted in a desperate area with
school fees, levies, exercise books, pencils and
wax crayons.
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July 2007, winter time for grade 3, children
sitting on cold floors in a make-shift classroom.
Hozheri Primary was established in 2002. The
property was a former commercial cattle ranch.
The white Zimbabwean farmer owned three farms and
in a rare case, he was asked by the government to
release one farm. The farmer handed the keys
personally to the headmistress and the Sisters of
The Infant Jesus to establish the school and
clinic for the newly resettled community. All the
farmer asked is that they look after the farm and
hoped it would be put to good use and not benefit
political cronies. The farm house is currently
used as school classrooms and administration
building.
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Grade Zero with volunteer parent-teacher, in the
African winter sunshine. This is their permanent
classroom.
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Career Development staff receiving a gift of
pumpkins from the Headmistress and school.
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You must stay for tea some colonial habits
never die, economic meltdown not withstanding.
This is not an easy presentation for visitors
these days. Mrs. Machikano, school Headmistress
puts out tea for Career Dev visit. Zimbabwean
culture and hospitality, Mrs. Machikano washes
the hands of her guests before tea.
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Profiles, a few examples of the children your
donations help.
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Children in Stress.
It speaks for its self, this orphan boy is now in
school and removed from physically abusive
guardians. The school head exposes the wounds the
young boy received from an abusive uncle.
The mother and two older siblings of this young
boy died after eating poison mushrooms, he is the
sole survivor and is hopefully in recovery.
Twin orphan girls who had been prevented by
grandmother from attending school. Now beginning
their first day at school.
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Poverty and destitution comes to the doorstep.
Mr. Hove is a self imposed destitute, who has
made the entrance to the Career Development
office his home and toilet. He has family that
have come on two separate occasions to take him
to their rural home where he would be much better
off, both times he has run and hid away from
them. We have made efforts to help him, providing
clothing and blankets, these have been stolen
from him each time.
We have sort help from government social services
but it would appear they have better things to do
as the attempts we have made to get assistance
for him have been fruitless. We are united in
prayer with you that a positive change may come
to Zimbabwe soon.
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Out of a disaster the Career Development
Education Support idea was born. Career
Development Education Support and Agriculture
Outreach Extension is a Maryknoll Sisters
Mission Project. Making Gods Love Visible in
Gweru, Zimbabwe.
Africas Silent Disaster AIDS orphans. More than
16 million people have lost their lives to AIDS
in Africa, add to this, the lost generation, over
11 million orphaned children left behind. These
orphans are traumatised by the loss of their
parents, they are stigmatised by their extended
families, communities and society through
association with the disease. Millions of orphans
are thrust into abject poverty by the loss of the
bread-winners, the growing number of orphans that
are defined as children who have lost one or both
parents have had a devastating effect on the
traditional extended family mechanisms. There is
also a tremendous strain on national health and
education systems in most of the severely
affected countries. Identifying the needs. There
is a moral obligation that is key to Africas
development. These orphans need housing, adequate
health care, feeding, educating and nurturing.
We, the people of the global village, cannot
afford to lose this ever increasing population of
AIDS orphans because we will all reap the
fall-out from this silent disaster. We will have
societies all cross Africa where children have
not had an education and therefore cannot even
qualify for basic jobs. Many of these children
will have anti-social behaviour as a result of an
induced hard life. There will be a generation of
children more vulnerable to exploitation and
disease as there will be no sense of self-worth.
The needs of AIDS orphans in Zimbabwe is immense
and immediate. They need a safe place to live,
education, food and guidance and care until the
end of their adolescent years. Zimbabwe has been
hardest hit by the pandemic. Traditional systems
for the care of vulnerable children by the
extended family have started to fall apart
through the pressures of poverty. For the past
seven years this has been compounded by the
negative socio, political and economic conditions
prevailing in the country.
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A need for a proactive role in reinforcing the
extended family. There will never be enough
orphanages in Zimbabwe to take care of this
growing army of orphans. The only practical and
realistic approach would be to strengthen,
support and assist the extended family
proactively. For the vast majority of orphaned
children, the loss of their parents brings
destitution. The loss is far reaching, their
parents deaths brings an end to the childs
education and stability. It brings stigmatisation
by family and neighbours. Many of Zimbabwes
orphans are in a household with one surviving
parent, a single orphan. (Loss of both parents,
a double orphan. No parents and no extended
family, a child-headed family) The high
percentage of HIV infection within marriage soon
means that many children soon lose both parents,
and in most cases the children become the
responsibility of the extended family. It is
mostly grandparents, one or both, or aunts and
uncles that take on that responsibility as local
culture through custom and traditional beliefs
dictates. Children with no extended family, must
fend for themselves. The challenges and dangers
that face orphans brought about by the break down
of the extended family system. We come across
similar stories from grandparents and aunts and
uncles alike, that ever since children were
brought to them, they have been suffering. At
best it is a tremendous act of self-sacrifice on
the part of responsible extended family, at worst
it is a burden and a hindrance to some. For the
majority of the extended families, they have just
enough for themselves and suddenly they have to
take in two or more children. They now have to
find more food and money for school fees and all
the other expenses that come with education i.e.
uniforms, books, pens, pencils etc. There is an
unprecedented pressure being exerted on the
extended family system. Child-headed households
are increasingly common. Traditional inheritance,
land ownership and tangible and realistic,
practical health, social welfare and education
policies lag behind. Some orphans become child
headed households because the extended family
has all but deserted them for one reason or
another, usually to shirk the responsibility. Or
an uncle or some other relative would have taken
the property the children would normally inherit
thus leaving the orphans with no resources to
scrape a living. The orphans that do inherit a
house with furniture, soon have to sell off the
household goods just to survive. Other orphans
are taken in by neighbours who may not always
have the best interest of the child or children
at heart with orphans ending up as cheap labour
or open to physical or sexual abuse. For the rest
there are the streets of the big cities and towns
of Zimbabwe, where children lack adult
supervision, stability and survive by begging,
crime, prostitution and are open to political and
military manipulation.
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The Career Development Education Support
Agriculture Outreach and Extension (CDES AOE)
approach CDES- We are Advocates for the plight
of AIDS orphans and Vulnerable Children. Every
child has a right to safe shelter, food,
education and a chance to work towards a better
future. What Almighty God considers to be pure
and genuine religion is this To take care of
orphans and widows in their suffering and to keep
oneself from being corrupted by the world.
James 127 GNV
Welcome to the Career Development Education
Support (CDES) and Agriculture Outreach and
Extension (AOE) Power Point Feature
Presentation.
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Selection of beneficiaries
Most beneficiaries are referrals. Headmasters,
teachers, city councilors, social welfare, parish
priests and other religious groups and leaders.
Orphans gather in a Headmasters office at a rural
Anglican mission primary school in the hope they
may qualify so they can continue with their
education. CDES is a Catholic Faith Based
Organisation. Gods love does not distinguish
Catholic from Protestant, so why should CDES.
Career Development programme officers , Mr.
Willie Chakauya Snr Program Officer on left
seated and Sr. Aleta Chimuti right, interview the
potential beneficiaries.
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Off the street

• Many desperate cases come into the CDES offices
  in the hope for assistance.
• They are either referred to CDES or come off the
  street by chance picking up on the words
  Education Support on the sign post outside the
  office.

This grandmother came into CDES offices with
three of her four orphaned grandchildren, seeking
assistance. They have been placed on the CDES
waiting list. Looks can be deceiving many poor
people can be wrongly assessed by the way they
are dressed, this is a colonial inheritance and
curse. From a young age Zimbabweans across the
board are taught to always be presentable, when
going to church or into town, no matter how poor
a background one comes from. It teaches
self-respect for ones self and good manners to
whom ever one meets. A curse because when seeking
assistance, it sends a wrong signal. The face of
poverty is not always plainly visible in Zimbabwe.
A headmistress of a rural school hears about the
work of CDES and comes in to request assistance
for the ever increasing number of orphans at her
school. Ten are placed on a waiting list.
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Visits with beneficiaries

• Beneficiaries are visited in both the school and
  home environments. We also ask that they come
  into the CDES offices for Tutorials and Youth
  Development, then update us on their progress at
  home and school.
• Career Development has 70 of its orphan
  beneficiaries in the rural areas with the
  remaining 30 in Urban High Density areas.

Sr Aleta meets with an orphan beneficiary, Fadzai
at the CDES office. Fadzai lives in a rural area
and comes into town from time to time. She makes
a visit to the CDES office in preparation for her
agriculture course.
CDES staff members together with a St Patricks
Anglican Secondary School Senior teacher in a
rural area. They meet with three orphan
beneficiaries in the red school uniform.
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Report backs
CDES require all beneficiaries in the urban
centers to make as frequent a visit as they can
manage to the CDES offices to give progress
reports on home and school life. Rural children
are asked to come in at least twice in a school
term and then by letter once a month. CDES visits
each rural school once a term, fuel and funds
permitting.
Archibald is in his final year of High School
(upper 6th) He attends a well known Catholic High
School, Loreto Mission High. He is resplendent in
his donated school blazer. All schools require
school uniforms in Zimbabwe. There are positive
and negative aspects about this requirement.
Uniforms are very costly, and depending on the
school can be quite elaborate in their demands.
Many require blazers, shirts, ties a winter and
summer outfit, tracksuit and particular colour
shoes, black or brown. Most of our beneficiaries
have second, third or even forth hand uniforms.
With exceptions CDES will acquire one or two new
items if second hand ones are not available,
funds permitting.
Here two beneficiaries, Nomore on the left of Sr.
Kobets and Blessing on the right in a red jacket.
Nomore is in his last year training to be a Motor
Mechanic. Blessing is in his first year in
Mechanical Instrumentation with the National
Railways of Zimbabwe. Both these young men have
been assisted by CDES for most of their High
School education, CDES now assists them with
there tertiary education. They will soon qualify
in their two fields and hopefully get jobs and
take full responsibility for their lives and
family.
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Visits with Guardians

• CDES encourages and supports the Extended family
  system in taking care of orphans.
• CDES strengthens the extended family by being
  Substitute Parents together with the guardians.
  
• Guardians meet with CDES staff to problem solve
  the challenges that face extended families.

Picture above Snr Programme officer, Willie
Chakauya and Administrator, Beauty Chingomanje
address the guardians and orphan beneficiaries.
A guardian (lady with white hat) with three
orphans. The young man in the fore ground is a
beneficiary, the two younger children benefit
from the Agriculture assistance programme.
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Peer Education

• Doreen is a young woman who is HIV positive.
  Wanting to know about the programme she one day
  just came in to the Career Development offices
  and asked what we do, after we informed her of
  our work she was pleased and excited and
  volunteered to counsel the children in the
  programme at no cost. Doreen receives a travel
  allowance from Career Development as she lives
  out of Gweru.

Doreen
Orphan
Issues such as peer pressure and HIVAIDS are
covered in the Peer Education sessions.
Doreen
Orphan
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Self Reliance through Food Production

• The Agriculture Outreach and Extension (AOE)
  branch of the CDES programme is instrumental in
  spearheading the Strengthening of The Extended
  family through food production.
• The orphan beneficiaries with their extended
  family guardians can be self sufficient in food
  production with the professional advice and
  assistance of the AOE team of co-coordinators
  and agriculture volunteers under the directorship
  of Sr. M.F. Kobets.
• In rural areas, garden projects are set up at a
  central point for rural orphan beneficiaries to
  produce food under professional supervision.
  Schools were CDES orphan beneficiaries are
  enrolled make the most suitable and convenient
  point for a garden project.

On the left Mrs Netsai Shavi is AOE agriculture
coordinator. On the right Sr. M.F. Kobets, CDES
and AOE Director.
Sr. Kobets and Netsai Shavi listen and advise
CDES beneficiary on his vegetable patch.
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Agriculture Projects

• A South Korean charity organisation Skip a Meal,
  Save a Life provided funds for a poultry project
  through CDES/AOE at a rural secondary school. The
  funds were sourced with the assistance of Sr.
  Jeongmi Lee M.M. a member of the Maryknoll
  Sisters and lay-missioners community resident in
  Zimbabwe.

CDES through its agriculture branch AOE, provided
funds for the vegetable garden. The schools
headmaster, Mr. Saira, talks Sr. Kobets through
the progress of the project.
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Reaping the rewards

• Mr. Saira, school head, presents cash from the
  sale of produce sold to the rural community to an
  orphan participant in the garden project.
• The money earned is presented to the orphans who
  then use the money to either contribute to their
  school fees and levies or purchase exercise
  books, pens, pencils and items of school uniform.
• The projects promote self worth and self
  reliance. Making a generation of Zimbabweans less
  dependent on hand outs.

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AOE provides inputs
Sr. Kobets sorts vegetable seeds to hand to an
agriculture volunteer, Nyarai. The seeds will be
used at a rural school garden project.
Shade cloth is measured and cut and handed to an
orphan beneficiary for a garden project. Shade
cloth is need to protect vegetables from the
harsh sun and reduce evaporation as water is
scarce in most rural areas.
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Agriculture projects in Urban High Density areas.

• Ever an orphan beneficiary shows Mrs Netsai Shavi
  agriculture coordinator the progress of her
  vegetable garden at her home.
• Ever lives with her older sister Angela and their
  HIV positive mother.
• Ever is assisted by her sister in the garden
  project.
• Some of the produce they grow is consumed by the
  family and some is sold to raise money for their
  daily needs. CDES also encourages children
  together with their guardians to use some of the
  income from garden projects to contribute
  something towards their school fees and levies.
  This has worked well as most beneficiaries have
  been making contributions towards their
  education.

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Local Community Assistance

• Mr Fika is a resident of a High Density Suburb
  were ten CDES beneficiaries reside with their
  guardians.
• Mr Fika leases a plot of land from the Gweru City
  Council where he has a very impressive
  agriculture project that sustains his wife and
  two children and four orphan extended family
  members.
• The plot is in walking distance to the High
  Density suburb seen here through the grass in the
  picture below.

Mr Fika is on the left of CDES/AOE coordinator,
Netsai Shavi. To her right is Tendai, a CDES
orphan beneficiary who lives with her older
brother Tapiwa. Their guardians are an Aunt and
Uncle.
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All we need is land and water.

• Mr Fikas plot has an abundance of water, the
  water table is very high in this area.
• He has dug eight shallow wells at various
  intervals for ease of watering. The wells have
  brought forth water for the past two and a half
  years with no end to the supply as yet.
• Mr Fika has offered a small piece of his plot to
  CDES/AOE for no charge.
• The possibilities for this offer are being
  discussed by the CDES/AOE staff of how best to
  action a garden project on this piece of land.

Mr Fika draws water as Tendais brother, Tapiwa
waters the garden.
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Supplementary Food items

• CDES/AOE occasionally hands out supplementary
  food items (funds permitting) such as peanut
  butter, cooking oil and sugar beans, as these
  items are extremely costly for many Zimbabweans.
• A grandmother above receives a jar of peanut
  butter for a young undernourished orphan she has
  in her care, she has two other older orphans that
  are in the CDES programme. This grandmother sold
  her only pair of decent shoes to buy food for the
  orphans in her care. She has a few prized pieces
  of furniture inherited from her deceased daughter
  and son in-law.
• Some grandmothers inherit furniture from their
  dead children but soon have to sell off the
  furniture to survive.

• Mrs Shavi gives a mother of two of our
  beneficiaries a bottle of peanut butter.
• This mother is HIV positive. The father of her
  four children passed away in 2001.
• She has since had another child with a policeman.
  
• This child is four years old now and appears to
  be infected with AIDS, from mother to child
  transmission.

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School stationery can be taken for granted
Communication Youth Programme officer, Mahendra
Keshav provide pens and pencils to beneficiaries
as school Head master, Mr. Mpofu observes.

• Snr Programme officer, Willie Chakauya provides
  exercise books (note books) to beneficiaries.
• CDES occasionally gives beneficiaries school
  stationery, candles for studying at night and
  pens.
• CDES now encourages children to raise a little
  money by selling vegetables to buy their own
  stationery.

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Networking for Winter

• A small charity organisation based in Harare,
  Keeping At Risk Kids Warm, started and funded
  by a lady named Denny from the Netherlands. The
  organisation made contact with CDES and asked us
  to distribute the sleeping bags, featured in the
  picture. The sleeping bags are manufactured from
  a small site in Harare with a local Zimbabwean
  lady named Jenny James as designer and
  supervisor. Denny visited CDES with Jenny in
  2005.
• Denny passed away 2006 after a long battle with
  cancer.
• CDES distributes the sleeping bags to
  beneficiaries mainly in rural areas as many of
  these children have no blankets.

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Youth Development

• Most government schools no longer have art as a
  subject as there are not enough resources for
  inputs that for the most part can be costly. It
  is also not considered as important as academic
  subjects. CDES Youth Development programme uses a
  combination of new inputs and used or re-cycled
  inputs i.e. spent toilet rolls, boxes, greeting
  cards and old calendars. The new inputs are
  mostly donated and so are some of the
  used/re-cycled inputs.
• Creative tutorials are a valuable activity for
  the children as the art, craft and general life
  discussions in life skills and general knowledge
  have a positive impact on the general wellbeing
  of the orphan beneficiaries.
• The art and crafts are fun and the children learn
  to use their hands in productive ways. Taught by
  the Communication and Youth programme officer Mr.
  Mahendra Keshav.
• There are also Academic tutorials offered to
  beneficiaries . Mr. Charles Forder a retired
  teacher trainer volunteered his services to teach
  Maths, English and Geography.

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Re-cycle and Re-use

• The children that attend Youth Development
  lessons make all sorts of crafts using all sorts
  of recycled items. Re-cycling teaches the
  children the importance of re-cycling for a
  cleaner and safer environment.

Talent and Isaac make puppets using, used toilet
rolls. Youth Programme Officer started them off
by making an example as the two watched, then the
two went on with very little assistance to make
their own puppet on a string.
Talent shows off his creative talent to CDES
staff members.
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Income Generation Recycled Paper Products

• Elephant Dung recycled paper making project.
• Initiated by the Youth Development programme
  officer as an income generating project.
• The children make the paper under the close
  supervision of the Youth Development programme
  officer, Mahendra Keshav.
• The recycled paper is then fashioned into
  greeting cards by the children and then sold to
  visitors to Career Development.
• Some sales have been made through a local tourist
  attraction, The Antelope Park here in Gweru.

Christmas greeting cards made from recycled
elephant paper.
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Staff make a day of it while being productive

• Director, Sr. Kobets and Administrator, Beauty
  Chingomanje join the production line, putting
  together recycled envelopes and greeting cards.
• Snr Programme officer drops his more serious role
  for a little fun in the recycled paper product
  production line.

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Other income generating projects

• CDES tries to practice some of what it preaches.
  Making efforts towards self reliance.
• CDES holds annual Jumble sales and Fetes to
  raise funds and awareness of the activities of
  the programme.

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Full time staff, CDES/AOE
Administrator Beauty Chingomanje
Senior Programme Officer Willie Chakauya
Director Sr. Mary Frances Kobets M.M.
Communication Youth Programme Officer Mahendra
Keshav
Agriculture Coordinator Netsai Shavi
Programme Officer Sr. Aleta Chimuti SJI
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Suggested ideas on how to use this presentation

• As a slide show.
• Print out as a hand out.
• Extract specific information or pictures by
  copying and pasting.
• Contact details e-mail- careerdev_at_zol.co.zw
• Tel- 263-054-222119
• This presentation was created by the
  Communication Youth Programme Officer for CDES.
  
• If there are any typo errooors or speling
  mistakes , pleese akcept my apologies.