Let's give girls training for a vibrant future

In Zimbabwe the law states that children who have grown up in children’s homes must leave that home  when they are 18 years old.  The  children who fail their final exams at school are just abandoned with little education and no skills.   It is not hard to imagine what becomes of them after that,  and sadly many girls resort to prostitution as means of support.

We have made a way for them. We offer a place of refuge where they can learn life skills to help them to help themselves. The core focus is on agriculture where they learn about growing vegetables, rearing broiler chickens and egg layers, as well as rearing pigs and how to make their own wormery for fertiliser and to sell the worms for fishing.  We have been so blessed with the donation of greenhouses which adds so much more to their skill set. The girls have their own patch of land and grow, reap and sell their produce. They are taught every skill they will need from purchasing the seed to selling at markets and doing their own accounting. The profit they make during their time with us is what they use to start their own projects when they leave us. In some cases they are employed in the agriculture sector. The skills they have learned in the greenhouse really does give them the edge over others when applying for a job on a farm. 

We do not just leave them there either we follow up regularly on their progress and stay connected. As you can imagine strong bonds are formed and they really do become part of our family and are often seen popping in for a visit when they can to visit the staff and their "sisters" and catch us up on their lives.  Their time with us is filled with other life enhancing activities such as counselling and bible study. They also can join in the choir and music activities and have elective courses such as sewing, cooking and crafts.  It is such a unique program in this part of the world and we are so proud of our graduates!

Photos: Allison grew up in a children’s home and joined our training school in January 2020 after failing her exams in 2019.   She has proven to be one of our top students.

Amy and Tina are sisters and also grew up in a children’s home.  They now have hope for a bright future. 

Everyone here at the American Foundation for Children with AIDS, and our partners in Africa, thank you for your continued support of this important project.  If you would like to learn even more about this project and others, please contact Tanya Weaver at tweaver@AFCAids.org. 

This lovely bunch of girls below have just graduated from the Sandra Jones Centre Vocational Skills Training School.  Each one has had extensive training in greenhouse farming. Six girls have chosen to move on to our attachment program with 3 working on our farm and 3 joining Providence farm. The attachment program has proven to be a wonderful opportunity for our students to put their training into practice while having the protection of our staff to monitor their progress. Three girls from our last attachment program have done so well and achieved so much that we are now considering employing them full-time.

The next group of girls below have just joined us for our 2020 vocational skills program. For the next 12 months this group will receive training in running a broiler chicken project, a layer chicken project, a piggery, worm farming and greenhouse farming. This training program has been running for the past 8 years. Through the generous donations of greenhouses by AFCA we were able to add the greenhouse component in 2016 and it has proven to be the most popular module in our program. The girls are able to see huge returns for their hard work and it gives them great pleasure to be able to feed not just themselves but also the 70 children at the Sandra Jones Centre.

We continue to be so incredibly grateful to AFCA for making this project possible. Not only are our girls being trained and employed they are learning so many valuable lessons each day. Lessons which include: business skills, financial management, the importance of hard work and integrity, team work, goal setting, conflict resolution, and honesty.

Everyone here at the American Foundation for Children with AIDS, and our partners in Africa. thank you for your continued support of this important project.  If you would like to learn even more about this project and others, please contact Tanya Weaver at tweaver@AFCAids.org.