Zimbabwe: Help for 600 displaced and needy children in Holy Trinity Parish, Cowdray Park, Bulawayo

Assistance for 600 displaced and needy children in the Holy Trinity. Primary school pupils who benefited from the grant. @ACN
Assistance for 600 displaced and needy children in the Holy Trinity. Primary school pupils who benefited from the grant. @ACN

In 2008, faced with the catastrophic situation in Zimbabwe, the diocese of Bulawayo decided to embark on a self-help project in order to provide food, especially for the children of the surrounding area. And so they set out a vegetable garden and drilled a borehole with a hand pump. It provided them with enough water to fill a 5000 litre tank -- enough at least to quench the thirst of the needy children in the diocese. But needless to say, it was nowhere near enough to meet all the needs of the local people. And so Father Innocent Ndlovu, parish priest of Holy Trinity Parish in Bulawayo, turned to ACN for financial support, so as to be able to help with food, school fees, essential medicines and the garden project.

In August 2008, Father Ndlovu wrote to ACN, „The situation in the country is bad; there is a great deal of suffering among the people. The worst hit are the children". Holy Trinity Parish is a new and rapidly growing Christian community in the Cowdray Park suburb of Bulawayo, the second-largest city in Zimbabwe. In recent years the government has destroyed dozens of simple parts that people were living in. Cowdray Park has now become a Township, and the number of needy families in the parish is increasing rather than decreasing. In fact there are over 600 orphans and other needy children aged between 1 and 16 years. Many of them, even at such a tender age, are already caring for an entire family, because their parents have died of Aids.

In August 2009 Father Innocent Ndlovu wrote to ACN: „Many heartfelt thanks for your love and concern for the welfare of our children ... During the long holidays in December we distributed food supplements to some 205 children in the parish aged between 5 and 14 years."
ACN had given €20,000 in 2008. With this sum Father Innocent and his helpers were able to help all the needy children in Cowdray Park. They provided medicines and food and also paid the school fees for a total of 350 children, while at the same time a part of ACN's donation went on the garden project.

 

 

To know about this and many other similar projects in favour of the pastoral needs of the suffering Church, please contact our national offices.