Give 200 orphans in Zimbabwe access to education

As always, Trinity Project has had a busy and productive quarter, supporting individuals with tailored legal advice and support, working more broadly with communities to raise awareness and empower agents for change, and with local authorities and stakeholders to improve children’s legal and socioeconomic rights. We were fortunate enough to join them for a week, to join them in visiting client’s homes, see some of the vital work they are doing in local communities running clubs and workshops, and work with local authorities to advocate for change on child protection and child rights. It was inspiring to see the cutting-edge work they are doing to protect and empower vulnerable children, and how much change and progress they are making despite the urgent situation and sheer number of families in need of support.

Project workers provided legal advice and support for over 200 birth registration cases and nearly a further 200 cases on child abuse, neglect, avoidance of child maintenance payments and other legal challenges to children’s rights. These cases are overwhelmingly referred by women. Trinity is proud to have fostered a safe space where women feel they can discuss sensitive matters and seek help, but notes the need for men to take a more active role in raising children and protecting children’s rights in Zimbabwe.

Trinity Project continues to run psychosocial support for disadvantaged children by the way of kids clubs. It offers life skills, educational activities, empowerment workshops on children’s rights, recreational activities to allow a safe space for kids to be kids. Workshops this quarter included producing posters, plays and poems about child abuse, child marriage and peer pressure. Children are encouraged to be self-aware and self-confident, learning about themselves and their rights and offered the opportunity to play, create and take part in sports.

They have expanded this programme this quarter to focus on clubs for young women and girls, which offers the same support and opportunities but focuses on gender parity and women’s empowerment, with workshops focusing on child marriage, girls education, gender-based violence, and sexual and reproductive health. Girls are provided with free refreshments, sanitary products and encouraged to express themselves and demand their rights. We were lucky enough to talk to some of the children after workshops, and hear first hand how much they had learned and how they were raising their expectations as a result of the message.

Trinity also ran awareness-raising workshops throughout Matabeleland reaching over 1000 people. These work with community leaders and local families to raise awareness on children’s rights, the importance and process of birth registration, and other child protection issues like child abuse, child marriage and education. There was a marked increase in knowledge, understanding and commitment from the communities we worked with after the sessions.

The project was also able to advocate and facilitate for change in the communities they work in, organising dialogues between local communities and local authorities and service-providers. For example, sitting families down with village heads, local healthcare workers, local birth registrars, social services officers and district councillors to discuss child protection issues and find community-based solutions. This is transformational, bridging the gap between communities and authorities and finding real, practical solutions to the registration crisis. It is too soon to see the benefits of this, but clear plans for change were developed and communities were grateful that Trinity had helped their voices be heard.

Trinity is constantly expanding, finding new ways to support children and families in need of registration and support and working with wider communities and institutions to tackle registration. As we expand, we hope you will expand with us and be able to continue support this vital work, which helps vulnerable children to get the legal documents they need to access education, healthcare and welfare.

Trinity Project has continued its work this past quarter, driving forwards the aims of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), supporting vulnerable women and children, and advocating for social justice and education for all. It combines a number of interventions and approaches, to best support vulnerable individuals while fostering wider sustainable community development. These included office drop-ins, legal advice and counseling centres, home visits to clients, mobile legal advice clinics, national radio programmes, weekly newspaper articles, stakeholder capacity-building workshops, kids’ clubs, awareness-raising and community empowerment campaigns.

In the last quarter, the project received over 300 cases from office drop-ins, 20 cases from visiting communities, and 100 cases from legal advice clinics. The number of cases received was concerning, as the government rolled out a mobile registration initiative this quarter that should have supported hundreds of children through registration. This continued reliance on Trinity’s services demonstrates the complexity of the registration crisis, and the importance and impact of Trinity’s approach, which addresses a range of registration barriers in the most intensive and effective ways.

Trinity Project staff also visited 40 ongoing cases in their family homes – this approach is highly effective as it provides intensive, ongoing support to clients, and makes them feel at ease and prepared to disclose or discuss sensitive issues, and also allows project officers to more fully understand the context and circumstances of individual cases. Of these cases, project officers were pleased to note that 21 cases were pending registration but nearly complete, and 16 cases had been completed and registration documents acquired.

Perhaps the most astounding individual support provided on a home visit came in December, to a child called Kimberley, who is in the process of acquiring her birth certificate. This case has been particularly challenging as her family are below the extreme poverty line and she is disabled, so even accessing registration centres has been difficult, let alone affording and working through the registration process. To support her and her family through these difficult and additional barriers, Trinity donated a wheelchair to Kimberley, and have pledged to buy the families groceries for the next 6 months.

The project also ran several community and stakeholder workshops and sessions throughout the last quarter. This included 16 stakeholder meetings run by Trinity (where participants were invited to share experiences and advice); a few stakeholder meetings where Trinity was invited as a guest (to share their own experience and expertise by other NGOs or child protection teams); one stakeholder workshop (where participants were educated on children’s rights, the African Charter, and the SDGs); and 32 community workshops (which raise awareness on the importance of registration, the registration process, children’s rights and women’s empowerment).

Towards the end of the year, Trinity attended a sports gala hosted by the National Aids Council, to advocate on birth registration in its relation to sports and HIV/AIDS. Without a birth certificate, children are barred from participating in organized sports clubs or activities. This clearly hinders the overall development of the child, and can be very exclusionary and disheartening. Similarly, without a registered birth, you may not be registered as a Zimbabwean citizen and therefore banned from accessing public healthcare. This can be devastating, and even fatal, to those suffering from HIV/AIDS. The event was very popular and a great success. Trinity continued this momentum by participating in the World AIDS campaign across Bulawayo and Matabeleland last quarter.

This quarter has been highly successful in terms of individual cases and community empowerment. Trinity is staking a reputation as a national leader and household name on registration and continues to meet or surpass its project targets. However, awareness about registration and its importance continues to be low amongst rural communities and particularly amongst community leaders. Trinity intends to prioritise targeting this area of advocacy, as well as working with individuals and communities, throughout the next quarter, and urgently needs continued support to achieve this.