Sustainable Agriculture Zimbabwe Project #11317

Livestock for 300 Orphan Families in Zimbabwe

by American Foundation for Children with AIDS

Project Report | Feb 3, 2021
A New Year of Hope

By Norma | Partner in Africa

New beginnings always mean there have been endings. I think I share the feelings of many that we are hopeful that this new year will not be like the old year; that we are heralding in a year of hope and new expectations.

At ‘Morning Star’ ranch, we started the year by rehoming a small herd of our older ‘ladies’ with their babies to a new venue where we will be pushing the production of milk and its by-products (cheese in its many forms!). Sarah, a good friend, has been watching our project with keen interest. She is a small-holder farmer who has a few good dairy cows whose milk and cheese she sells to a small market. We have partnered to promote goat milk into the city of Bulawayo, via her established markets. With her knowledge and well-established dairy, we are hoping to learn the intricacies of cheese-making.

Here are Bruce, Trio and Goatrude settling into their new home. We miss them! However, it is interesting to see how the younger does are stepping up without the older does around. When I go into the paddocks to check and chat to the herd it has always been the older does who will come up to me to see what I may have for them. If the younger girls come too close, one look or butt, from them and they scuttle away. Now those younger girls are keen to come up to me and are delighted when they get the head scratch the older girls used to get! This photo shows a few of the does that beneficiaries have returned to us after their three-year contracts expired. Beauty, bottom right, came into us pregnant and produced Luke, a good-looking boy. It has been interesting to meet the characters that have been returned and watch how they have integrated with the rest of the herd.

Another new beginning in the community woke us at 6am on 2 January with a cry for help to take a new mum and her baby to the clinic. The baby had decided to arrive 10 days early and was born at 5am at home. It is always a surprise to me to see how strong most of our rural ladies are. Mum, holding the baby, walked casually out of her house and climbed into the car while her mum and sisters accompanied her to the clinic. The other photos are of the clinic and the hand-sterilizing on entry!

When we finally returned home in November, it was to unpack and distribute items sent to us in the AFCA container! Many items were delivered to the above clinic where their resources are incredibly limited. Even band-aids are scarce. The bandages and birthing kits brought big smiles to the clinic staff! While the mother kits brought smiles as well as tears to the mothers who have so far received them. There are many more where those came from and mothers with their new babies will be receiving them as they leave the clinic after delivery. These were welcome gifts for many! Thank you to all the people involved in the collection, packing and work that it took to actually get the container from the USA to Zimbabwe!

And so another year is on its way to next year! 2020 seemed to move so fast, despite all the abnormalities that occurred world-wide. For us the ‘Morning Star’ phrase we have lived by, over the years, seems to be more true than ever: ‘The plan in there is no plan!’ Now we can add: ‘The normal is there is no normal!’ We are learning to live with no set plans but a quiet, ‘Let us see what the Lord’s plans are!’

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.

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Sep 18, 2020
Sewing Club Makes Hundreds of Masks

By Norma | Partner in Africa

Things are moving forward on the farm and many of last year’s ‘babies’ are now ready to produce babies of their own and be re-homed into the community. We are hoping to re-home 7 or 8 in the next month. Diamond, Thando and Talent (our chat group is called ‘The Three Amigos’!) have been watching for suitable homes as they move around the community and evaluate those that may ‘fit the bill’. From our original beneficiaries we are starting to receive the required 3 goats back onto the farm that will then release beneficiaries from their contract with AFCA. The does will meet one of the bucks and as soon as they are pregnant will also be re-homed. It is a busy time and the Three Amigos are being stretched – and enjoying the challenge!

Our sewing club was sponsored through our website to make hundreds of masks from donated fabric, which we have received over the years, a lot from visiting AFCA groups. What an amazing way to use up scraps as well as larger pieces of fabric. It has been a blessing for the club, as their usual small income has been affected this year with the cancellation of all our visiting teams. The club’s main sales are from these groups. So when we saw the window open for the opportunity to make masks for the community we leapt through it. They made masks and gave them out in the community, to their neighbors and friends who had no money to buy masks when the government made the wearing of masks compulsory. Thank you to those people who follow us and made a donation towards this project.

Harvesting of our one bee-hive had to happen and Talent bravely donned the bee-suit and successfully harvested the hive. We are hoping to introduce a bee project in the community in the near future and ran a workshop some months ago to see the interest people might have. It was popular and Talent has been to a couple of further workshops. He is showing a natural ‘talent’ for it.

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.

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May 21, 2020
Connecting with New Beneficiaries

By Norma | Partner in Africa

We have been connecting with several potential beneficiaries. After some training and checking of shelters, the team has been able to transfer to four homes; that means at least 12 of our pregnant does have left the home herd to help establish herds and therefore independence in vulnerable homes in our community. Exciting! We will then have only a few pregnant does remaining in the herd, and those are pregnant by Fred, our dairy buck. We will now wait a few months before we introduce any does to the bucks so they will not give birth in the winter months. Giving birth in our cold winter is hard on the mums and kids in our environment and we try to prevent pregnancies occurring during this time.

The little brown and white doe, Jakey, was returned to us by one of our beneficiaries, Victor, recently as the first of his ‘pay backs’. The little black and white kid next to her, Jami, is actually Jakey’s mother! Jami was handed out pregnant just over a year ago. The reason I show you these pictures is to indicate how well the programme is working in our community. I previously introduced you to Easy, one of our beneficiaries. Prayer would be appreciated for her health as she has been struggling for several months now. With the Covid-19 now appearing in Zimbabwe, she could be very compromised.

As I sign off, I pray for safety and health for you all, may we not be brought down by fear of what tomorrow may bring. People keep saying to me that they cannot wait to get back to ‘normal’. What is ‘normal’, I ask myself? Daily things change – what was normal last year or even 10 years ago, is not what tomorrow’s normal may look like. We move on into different seasons and different experiences daily. Let’s not be scared of change but embrace it (from a distance at the moment!) and be excited by what lies ahead after we deal with this virus that has caused such apparent havoc in our lives.

A quote I read today by Brene Brown spoke loudly to me: ‘We are being given the opportunity to stitch a new garment. One that fits all of humanity and nature.’ There IS a silver lining in it somewhere. Let us keep looking for it while we support those who have experienced loss and additional hardships.

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.

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