NEHEMIAH PROJECT and TOWN & COUNTRY MEATS, working together for a brighter future for children infected with or affected by HIV/AIDS in Zimbabwe.

Town & Country Meats has been a donor to NEHEMIAH AIDS RELIEF PROJECT via registered UK Charity Nehemiah Project Support Trust since 2010 when they were approached by a UK funder for support in starting an orphan-care work in Cowdray Park, a poor suburb in Zimbabwe’s second city, Bulawayo.

Since then, that work which started from humble beginnings has grown and grown, and more than a decade later continues to thrive and flourish to the great benefit of the service users who are, sad to say, usually children and families and amongst the poorest in the world. This is what’s been achieved:-

2011

• First things first, local couple engaged by the project as orphan care officers, skilled in dealing with large numbers of children, and of course this also provides employment within the Bulawayo community.
• Kids club established, reaching up to 300 children on a weekly basis.
• Home visitation program established, visiting 100s of homes a year, providing support and strength, a listening ear, and a shoulder to cry on.
• Education Assistance program established. We want to be different; more thinking of the long term, so instead of throwing money at a school and saying “educate some kids with that”, we work with the families of the children attending our kids club. We’re already visiting their homes, so we are learning what they need; many families that need Kids Club support also need funds for school fees. School isn’t free. It’s not expensive but if you don’t have money, it might as well be $1m! We start working with the families, and funding some school fees for specific children for early years primary (some of those kids are still in our program 10 years later and doing well as they near their end of their schooling.

2012 – the undernoted added:-

• It’s important to get foundations right. Our Kids Club leadership training program was established in 2012, along with an adult committee for the whole program in Cowdray Park. These things can’t be rushed, and culturally it is much more important to move together than to move quickly and leave people behind. Slowly, the foundations were being laid.
• Kids Club expanded to include “mountain top experiences” for children. Days out, weekend camps and the like, when more extensive and intensive work can be done in line with the project’s strapline; “rebuilding broken lives”. Sports matches, football for boys, and netball for girls, against our sister kids club across the other side of the City became a feature, introducing a bit of travel and new experiences for children of both clubs, building bonds and friendships.
• Computer suite established, put into the local secondary school from scratch, a basic computer literacy course written by the project, from scratch, and many children and some adults too, taught this basic 21^st century life skill. Suite shared with the school for the benefit of the whole community.
• We worked hard, all year, with officials at City council to acquire a plot of land in Cowdray Park. City Council will NOT be rushed!

2013 – the following added:-

• 1 hectare plot of land acquired on a lease basis and work begins to turn this rubbish dumped wasteland into a Community Centre for all. Nothing like it had ever been perceived, dreamed of, in this area before. Land cleared of rubbish (nearly thirty 10 ton truck-loads removed), fenced and gated, and one little sun-shelter put up in the middle. A solid structure that exists and has use to this day.
• More clubs established within the Kids Club at Cowdray Park. The English Language club is particularly popular and it starts us thinking about education in a wider sense.
• Our Kids Club begins to see a small number of children with significant disability coming. We do what we can to make them welcome and adapt our work with inclusion in mind, but it gets us thinking about disability in general. Could we do more?

2014 -the following added:-

• The plot of land in Cowdray Park is named Ithemba Centre. “Ithemba” means “Hope”, and we coined a phrase; “bring the site to life”. This means spending something to get things happening whilst we wait for planning approval for buildings, and funds to come in for more costly investment. We did loads in 2014. Brick/Block toilets, sports pitches, storage container, marquee, electricity, the first of three stone Rondaavals – we DEFINITELY brought the site to life.
• We begin investing time and money into an Early Childhood Development program (named “Bubbling Bee”) within a camp of people living in a disused Motel. This is on the other side of Bulawayo and represents a significant step forward in the UK Trust’s investment in areas Nehemiah Project is working in other than Cowdray Park.
• We develop and extend our income generating project investment. Trying to create stable micro-enterprises in a broken economy is incredibly difficult – so we give it a go, along with partnering with local businesses to provide employment for older kids in our kids club.

2015 – the following added:-

• We’re persuaded by a donor to start a small individual child sponsorship program. The donor says they’ll do all the admin (there’s a LOT). It’s still going 8 years later and the same donor is still administrating. Amazing.
• We continue with site development, laying the foundation slab for a substantial building and adding a cooking area to make the site more attractive to renters for events (such as weddings).
• We’re running leadership training camps for older teens, giving them the skills to become the next community leaders, business people and such like.

2016 & 2017 – the following added:-

• The first and by far the most expensive third of the main building on the plans is put up, housing proper flush toilets, offices and a proper, indoor kitchen. I must admit, I never thought it would happen, but in 2016, it did!
• The Cowdray Park site, Ithemba Centre, is flourishing. Orphan care work is well established in the area and many children are supported and strengthened every week by activities, sports on the volleyball or 5 aside football pitches. We’ve added team building equipment. It’s all running like a well oiled machine! Very satisfying.
• 2016 & 2017 were years of consolidation of the hard work of the previous 5 years. They were also years of big change for Cowdray Park, as the main visionaries from the UK who had set up the work in Cowdray Park, returned to the UK. Still involved with the project, but now from a distance and not “on the ground”.

2018 – the following added:-

• The UK Trust gets more involved in funding and programming for Bubbling Bee Early Childhood Development program.
• Disability takes “centre stage” as we develop the Ithemba Centre further, laying concrete paths throughout the site, and some rails, all to aid disability access.
• Educational classes like Computer literacy, Homework Clubs, and vocational training for car mechanics, hairdressing and the like are all starting, developing and changing in accordance with need as project workers use Ithemba Centre to it’s maximum potential to support and strengthen the community.

2019 – the following added:-

• Bubbling Bee ECD program has to move. We provide a lot of support and that all goes very smoothly.
• The disability access is continued and finished.
• We build the second of the three Rondaavals, and this is a theatre with an extension for the stage. Zimbabwean children LOVE acting, drama and dance and this is a great facility for the project staffs work with children building self esteem and confidence, rebuilding children’s broken lives.

2020 to 2022– the following added:-

COVID-19 severely restricted what could be done during this period, but project staff supported local health and COVID awareness initiatives, provided a vehicle and logistical support, and became “key workers” in this difficult time, in addition, in those 3 years we have been able to:-