Thursday, July 19, 2012

Welcoming Team 2SOL to Zimbabwe


Dear Friends,

I pray this finds you all well. Just a quick update on our work. We are grateful that we recently signed a grant with the Open Society Initiative of Southern Africa and will in the next few days beginning a preschool program at an identified school in Goromonzi. Nhaka Foundation is also hosting Team 2 Seconds or Less  (2SOL) from the US who began a month long tour of duty this past Monday and are busy at work, establishing community gardens, drilling wells for water at schools and working at one preschool. I am happy that all the plans we had set for the first half of the year were met and accomplished and as we go into the last half it is my hope that we will be able to fulfil the commitments we set out to accomplish this year.

The feeding program is going on very well with generous funding support from ZoomAID UK. On a daily basis a little over 500 children are receiving piping hot meals. As the children patiently stand in line for their turn to be served we really remain grateful of this feeding program. Many of the children are coming from very vulnerable families who are failing to provide consistent meals for their children and additionally a high percentage of the children are orphans.

As always I am always on the lookout for partnership opportunities and new funding partners to enhance the work we are doing and to reach out to new schools and communities. I have found that our appreciative inquiry work in the early learning centres with these communities always reveals hidden interesting initiatives and thoughts focused on improving the lives of the orphans and children under their care. This has always been exciting community meetings for me to participate in. The limiting factor however remains the issue of the funding we need to support their own initiatives. In most cases this does not run into mega amounts but just small enough to get them off an a path to sustainability.

Nhaka Foundation has really done well in being a lean mean machine, if I may call it that, with very low overheads and administrative costs that have to be met. The output of this small team of committed and dedicated individuals is always amazing to me and for that I am very grateful.

This July has been very cold indeed for us here and we are looking forward to some warmer weather in the coming months.

To God be the glory!

Blessings,

Patrick

It isn't where you came from, it's where you're going that counts.
-Ella Fitzgerald