changing communities through sport for 500 kids

Thank you so much for your continued support. We wouldn’t have made this quarter without your steadfast help. We hope you will continue to partner with us as our program grows from strength to strength.  

1. Feeding program

The feeding has continued to gather pace. We are now getting up to 100 children daily for the feeding. This is beyond our capacity at the moment but we are struggling to turn any away. On the weekends we still get upwards of 200 children.

1. Laundry Thursday

Every Thursday our team of volunteers gathers clothes for washing. We incorporate laundry day with training on hygiene. Separate training is offered to girls on their menstrual health and hygiene. We did not manage to take the children for vaccinations. We have shelved this into the new year, when we hopefully will have a new crop of volunteers, the current bunch is overstretched.  

1. Department of Social Welfare Compliant Files per Child

The first phase stalled because the Social Worker left for greener pastures. We are now in the process of trying to find a volunteer Social Worker to help get the program back on track. Our aim is the have 80 children documented.  

1. Sports Academy

While our sporting Saturdays continue, we didn’t manage to hold a sports day. The increased demand for attention by the children had meant that our personnel became too thinly spread.  This is something we are now considering for first quarter of 2024.

1. School and Scholarship program

Our scholarship program is still running and we would like to move it from just being a scholarship program to building a block of classes where our children can acquire academic and vocational training.

Our efforts to construct our own school are gathering pace. Please be part of this exciting new chapter.

1. Relocation program

Due to the need for a social worker this phase has not yet begun. We rather are looking for creative ways to fundraise and afford the incoming Social Worker some sort of allowance. This should keep them around long enough to see this program through.

1. New Site for HIS

Foundation was dug and construction has since begun and will be at window level soon. But this didn’t happen until this November, as the ongoing work of acquiring permits continues. Once the relocation program is complete the children with nowhere to go will need shelter, to date we have identified 60 kids who will need a home. We need to find partners to embark on the construction of a home, (a school- this has started but needs resource input to move beyond where it is now.) A horticulture project start up on the site for purposes of enriching the kids meals and an income generating project. Remains a priority. We need to raise between 2 and 3k to get cabbages, tomatoes going.

1. Digital Literacy and Mobile Library

Due to serious power outages the digital literacy program has been affected but we continue to desire its growth and advancement

The mobile library project has very few books. We however have continued sending word out for donated books to help us get started in our quest to promote a reading culture.

Overall, we cannot thank you enough for keeping our vision and program afloat. May you continue to be inspired to support us and help us achieve our main goals of relocation, housing children, feeding, 

Firstly, we would like to thank you again for your unwavering support. Through your support, we can significantly contribute to impacting the lives of vulnerable children in and around Harare. We are happy to report that we have made significant progress in several areas.

1. Feeding program We continue to provide daily meals to 80 children on average during the week and up to 250 over the weekends. We have also managed to vary the meals to provide a more balanced diet. We have seen significant progress in previously malnourished children. We need your continued support for the feeding to carry on. For now, it's one meal per day. We would love to do two meals per day.

2. Laundry Thursday. Our hygiene and menstrual health education program continues to run consistently every Thursday. Every Thursday our team of volunteers gathers clothes for washing. We incorporate laundry day with training on hygiene. Separate training is offered to girls on their menstrual health and hygiene. We are looking for prospects of having the go for vaccination against HPV and tetanus which hurt overall female health indicators. We are also looking to promote health-seeking behavior. We also have training in dental care. We are looking at bringing a healthcare worker to facilitate an awareness campaign on health-seeking behavior.

3. Department of Social Welfare Compliant Files per Child We have started with Phase One of our process to get compliance with the Department of Social Welfare. We began by filling out a Needs Assessment for the children with the help of our social workers. Our target is to document 80 children during the first phase. So far, our resident social worker has completed documentation for 10 children.

4. Sports Academy We still run the sports program every Saturday with over 200 children attending and participating. We held a Sports Day which was a huge success. We plan on having a tournament in the coming weeks, all in the hope of helping some of the children discover their sporting talents and perhaps link them with better-resourced clubs for their further development.

5. School and Scholarship program. Our scholarship program is still running and we would like to move it from just being a scholarship program to use building a block of classes where our children can acquire academic and vocational training. (as stated in our last report) We have 12 children in primary school, and 9 in High School. Unfortunately, we had one girl drop out of school after she ran away from her guardians claiming an abusive home. We have launched investigations into this and are taking the necessary steps to ensure that the child is protected. We are looking to construct 4 classroom blocks on the new plot of land we were allocated. We are also looking at building toilet and shower blocks as we work away from being an orphanage and school. In the same vein, our homeschool program is also very successful. We also have an after-school program where volunteers work with children by assisting them with homework and any pending school work, including exam preparation. This is not limited to the children we are sending to school. with improved support, we can add more children to the scholarship program.

6. Relocation program Owing to the construction of the new parliament and cyber city, we are looking at helping to relocate children. We have started the process of tracing relatives of most families in the compound as their tenure at the temporary structure is coming to an end after August. We would like to trace their relatives, document their families, and sponsor relocation expenses. This is a new exercise needing your partnership. We will share the finer financial implications of this exercise in our following report.

7. New Site for HIS We have managed to dig a foundation for our block of 4 classrooms and acquired some of the materials for construction. We will look into the work resuming after our General Elections scheduled for the end of August, all operations have stopped for now coupled with the need for financial help, so our work will not move forward for now. Once the relocation program is complete the children with absolutely nowhere to go will need shelter, to date we have identified 60 kids who will need a home. We need to find partners to embark on constructing a home, (a school- this has started), toilets, showers, etc. We want to start a horticulture project on the site to enrich the kids' meals and an income-generating project. We will need to raise start-up capital for this to take off.

8. Digital Literacy and Mobile Library Our digital literacy program is thriving along with our digital library. We are still working on collecting more books to promote a reading culture.

Overall, we cannot overemphasize the impact that you have made and we thank you for your continued support both in our current and future projects.