To all supporters of Rubatsiro Ministries,

It is hard to believe that we are almost half way through 2010!  We thank you again for your continued partnership with us this year.  This year we seek to strengthen our partnerships with ministries in Zimbabwe, showing God's love in a practical way, through them, to the people they serve.  The last newsletter focused on the Social Concerns Ministry of the Central Baptist Church in Harare.  In this issue we use our partner in Southern Zimbabwe, Fathers' Love Ministry, working at Mawabeni Primary School, to focus on the plight of children and education in Zimbabwe in 2010.  A relative of one of our trustee's, Alice Davidson, took a team of New Zealanders to Zimbabwe early this year and one of their visits was to Mawabeni School, we are privileged to be able to share some of their experiences with you in this newsletter.

Education for all?

Education is listed as a basic human right by the United Nations and in 1990 155 countries agreed to make 'Education for All' a national priority.  Zimbabwe has had a proud history in this area with one of the best school systems in Africa and an impressively high literacy rate of 91% in 2003 (only 3% below that of New Zealand). The tragedy is that Zimbabwe's standing in this area has been rapidly declining over the last 10 years as the national education sector has, for all intents and purposes, collapsed. Last year the Minister of Education, Senator David Coltart, said that over 90 000 teachers were on strike because schools were unable to support them.  Over 20 000 teachers had left the field in the two years preceding this. The Minister reported that the average textbook-pupil ratio in 2009 was around 15 children per textbook.  The public school infrastructure is in a desperate state and the national education department is in dire need of a curriculum review. The consequence of this collapse is devastating for the children of Zimbabwe. For every teacher on strike there is a risk that a class full of children will be out of school.  These children are losing out on precious education and becoming vulnerable to exploitation. Reports show that levels of child trafficking have significantly increased over the last few years in Zimbabwe.  These children are the hope for Zimbabwe and a disregard for their situation could lead to a bleaker future for the whole nation.  It is for this reason that many NGOs and churches see supporting these children as vital in answering God's command to "disciple the nations".  Children are the future and meeting their current needs is something that cannot be ignored!

UNESCO, 1990; CIA World Fact Book; U.S. State Dept  Trafficking in Persons Report, 2009; Speech by Senator David Coltart regarding  Education, 2010

Answering the call to disciple the nations

Our partner, Fathers' Love Ministries (FLM), has stepped forward to meet the needs of the children in the Mawabeni community by partnering with Mawabeni Primary School.  FLM seeks to do this by paying the school fees of vulnerable children (of the 800 students at the school 200 are AIDS orphans).  The school does not turn away children who cannot pay but by paying the fees the school can operate under less stress and support its teachers in a small way.  FLM has also supported school feeding programmes and the medical costs of HIV positive students.  Most recently FLM has set up a chicken project and continues to help maintain the school vegetable garden, both of which are sustainable ways to provide food and income for the vulnerable children at the school.  The majority of FLM's financial support comes from Rubatsiro Ministries, so we thank you for your partnership with us that has allowed much of the work of FLM to continue.

Team Ziwi: Showing solidarity with those in Zimbabwe.

In January this year a team of 8 people from North West Baptist Church, Team Ziwi, travelled to Bulawayo, Zimbabwe to spend 3 weeks serving people there.  One of their main activities was running pre-school workshops in a number of rural schools.  Sharleen McGregor, the head teacher of a West Auckland kindergarten and Alice Davidson, an ex-Zimbabwean teacher, developed and ran the workshops.  Sharleen shared some of her experiences of the schools she had visited and the children she had met: 

I just loved my first trip to Africa.  I remember sitting and listening to the children singing to us, they are such survivors - I guess that's what they have to be! In meeting the children I was just blown away by their passion and determination to learn; they desperately want a good education.  Education for them offers hope for a better future. It made we realise how much we take our schools in New Zealand and our ability to learn for granted!  The teachers themselves also show such passion for the children and for education.  A lot of them are not getting paid but they teach anyway.  They work with very limited resources, one pre-school we visited had nothing ...nothing!  Another had 3 story books, one of which was in French, but they had no paper so they were using these books to practice their writing in. The school infrastructure was not much better, with broken doors and very little furniture, and all the schools were desperately lacking in the very basic resources: paper, pens, pencils, chalk. Despite this I was amazed by what the teachers can do with so little.  I work at a low decile kindergarten and when I walked into our pre-school after visiting Zimbabwe I thought, "Wow, we have so much!  Even when we think we have so little it is so much more than they have".  As I think back to my time visiting the schools I just think that all they need are a few more basic resources, they are doing so much already but a bit of paper, some pens and books would make the world of difference!

Special appeal coming soon...

We have had a dream for a while to be able to send containers of gifts out to our partners and feel it is time to act on this desire God has placed on our Ministry.  We know there are so many people who would love to donate their old clothes and books, and even new school equipment, to the children of Zimbabwe but we have been unable to fund the shipping of these goods to date.  We ask that you pray about whether you, or your business, may be able to partially sponsor the cost of shipping a container to Zimbabwe later this year.  More details on this appeal will be sent out at the end of June.

Meet the Trustees continued

Joy Davidson joined Rubatsiro as a trustee in 2008 bringing FLM on board with her.  Joy acts as the co-ordinator for FLM and writes the quarterly Rubatsiro newsletters.  Joy grew up in Bulawayo where she completed her primary and secondary schooling before immigrating to New Zealand with her family in 2004.  After completing a degree in psychology and education Joy is currently studying towards her Masters in Development Studies at Massey University.  She loves the relaxed lifestyle of Palmerston North and is so excited by all the amazing things she is learning at the Institute of Development Studies, Massey.  Joy has a passion for children, she is particularly interested in the impact of poverty and AIDS on children in sub-Saharan Africa and in using schools as centres of care for these children.  She strongly believes that Rubatsiro has a privileged and exciting role in partnering with the restorative work of Jesus in Zimbabwe.

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