Highfield High I student Audrey is one of Tariro's new English club participants

I’m very pleased to report that Tariro’s program coordinator, Fadzi, is making great progress developing and expanding our programs in Zimbabwe.  The most recent development is the inauguration of an English club open to all Tariro students.  The English club, which meets every other Saturday, is intended to provide our students with a fun, yet serious extra-curricular activity to enable them to improve their spoken English.  While many of our students can read and write English fluently, they seldom have a chance to practice their spoken English, and many of our students struggle to communicate in basic spoken English.  This is even true of students who achieve high scores on exam subjects which are written in English.

At each meeting of the English club, special guests will present on topics intended to broaden our girls’ horizons, motivate them to succeed in school, and inspire them to want to communicate in English.  This program is modeled on the US Embassy’s “Food for Thought” series for high school students.  Since most of our students can not attend the Embassy’s lecture series due to transport costs and obligations at school and at home, we’re bringing the idea behind this great program to them.

The first guest of Tariro’s English club was Hazel Z.  Hazel went to high school in Highfield and is preparing for her first year of college in the US, where she will be attending school at MIT this coming fall.  Like many of our girls, Hazel is an orphan and lives in the same neighborhood with them. Her presentation was based on ‘rising above your situation.’  At the end of her presentation the girls asked questions, in English, and were given a chance to introduce themselves and talk about their dreams.  Here are Hazel’s reflections on her experience presenting at the club’s first meeting:

“Fadzi had invited me to be a living testimony to the girls that they can achieve all their goals regardless of their family background or the society they come from. As it is an English club it is a must to always speak in English so that the girls can build up their confidence and master the English language. Almost everyone introduced themselves and got to be asked any question that helped with getting to know them better. A guest visitor was Ms Peggy Samhaka whom the girls got to know personally and who is so different from the strict senior lady at Highfield High School as most of us knew her to be. The star of the day was Samantha M. who won the Student of The Month award and got a t-shirt and a notebook, which I am sure, will motivate all the girls to better their academic, marimba and participation levels.

Lastly it was the book and stationery distribution as we prepared to say our goodbyes. Tafadzwa also spoke to me about mentoring and tutoring some of the girls. I will be taking Audrey- she is writing her final exams this year-for extra Math lessons every Saturday at my house and promised to attend the English club whenever I could. Personally I was impressed with the services Tariro offers their beneficiaries because it is not only concerned about paying fees but also getting to know the girls personally and them getting to know each other. The other activities like camping and the English club I believe produce an individual who is not only educated but is well spoken, confident and feels part of a community.”

Thank you Hazel, Fadzi, and all of the Tariro girls!  And as a follow-up, I’ll feature a short profile of Audrey in my next post.

This week, I’m writing to you from an amazing African drum and dance camp, Camp Mabina, in New Mexico.  In my first post after returning to the US, I’m not going to give you any immediate news about our programs.  Instead, I want to take a few minutes to talk about one of the biggest shocks I encountered when I returned home.  One challenge of living in Zimbabwe is its isolation from the rest of the world, as state media rarely reports on international affairs.

I was therefore totally unaware of the Deepwater Horizon oil leak until I returned home.  When I heard about this oil spill, I couldn’t believe that this terrible environmental tragedy had occurred, or that I had been so unaware of the disaster.  In today’s post, I want to take a few minutes to comment upon Tariro’s approach to the environment, and our links with the environmental movement in the US.

Most importantly, I want to draw your attention to the work being done by one amazing women, Carolyn Parrs.  Carolyn is the brains behind an amazing podcast called Women of Green, which discusses the complex links between women and the environment.  A green marketing consultant living in Santa Fe, Carolyn has been volunteering her expertise and time with Tariro for over a year by mentoring me personally and helping me to get the word out about Tariro.  In fact, it is thanks to Carolyn that I began this blog.  Her efforts have been critical to Tariro’s success in raising awareness about our organization over the past year.

Late last year, I participated in Carolyn’s podcast.  I encourage you to take a few minutes to listen to our interview, as well as to visit the Women of Green website.  Carolyn’s thinking about women and the environment encompasses important issues such as how women are affected disproportionately by environmental change, just as they are by the HIV/AIDS pandemic.

In addition to highlighting Carolyn’s work, I want to share with you one small thing that Tariro does that contributes in our own small way toward the green movement in the US.  This is our production of environmentally friendly reusable “Chicco” shopping bags featuring embroidered panels made by our students.  By reducing the use of plastic bags, we can diminish our reliance on petroleum products.  In addition, the sale of our reusable bags helps Tariro to raise the money we need to continue paying school fees for our students in Zimbabwe.  I especially love the project because the sewing club producing the hand-embroidered panels featured on the bags gives the girls a way to contribute toward their own education, as well as that of other students enrolled in Tariro.  If you’re interested in buying a bag, or in learning more about the project, please contact us by writing a message on the blog, or through our website.

One of Tariro's hand-embroidered reusable shopping bags

Finally, I know I’m always going on about how wonderful our small size and flexibility as a grassroots organization are.  In addition to benefiting our girls, our small size also benefits the environment, as we made the decision not to buy a vehicle for use by the organization’s staff, who take public transport in order to conduct Tariro’s business.  Our reliance on public transportation is another way in which Tariro is striving to be green.

In my next post, I will be featuring another profile of one of Tariro’s newly enrolled students.  Thanks for reading, and as always, I appreciate all of your comments and feedback!

Peggy Samhaka, Highfield High 1 Senior Woman, with two of Tariro's new students, Audrey (left) and Rumbidzai (right)

In my last post from Zimbabwe, I’m happy to report that Tariro has finished our outreach for 2010, and have enrolled 13 new students in our program.  These include 7 new students at Highfield High 1, 5 new students at Domboramwari secondary school in Epworth, and Mai Chipira’s daughter Ashleen.

At each school, our outreach efforts were conducted by working with the Senior Woman, a position of great responsibility in the Zimbabwean school system.  Each school’s Senior Woman works closely with the school’s headmaster or headmistress.  This position is equivalent to a dean of students position in the US, and the Senior Woman is responsible for guidance counseling and student welfare for all students enrolled in her school.  In addition, she works closely with female students to address their particular needs.

Working with Tariro, the Senior Women at Highfield High 1 and Domboramwari compiled lists of orphaned students in need of sponsorship.  We used a combination of academic potential and achievement, as well as extremely vulnerability, to select students for sponsorship.   All of our new students were in immediate danger of being turned away at school for non-payment of fees, and had been attending school on the basis of a letter issued by their Senior Women stating that they were being considered for sponsorship.  Had it not been for Tariro’s sponsorship, all of these students would have been unable to keep attending school.  Many of them have previously missed entire terms at school because of their inability to pay fees.  Despite this hardship, however, all of these students are maintaining passing grades in their classes.

We are even aware of one student who had been sneaking into school, using a receipt from one of her friends whose family was able to pay her school fees.  Discovered several times by the school’s administration, she persisted in sneaking into school repeatedly over the past term, before Tariro stepped in with sponsorship for her.  I love that story… a girl who is dedicated enough to be sneaking into school even when she can’t pay her fees is exactly the kind of student I’m happy to be helping!

Over the next few weeks, I’ll be posting regular profiles of our new students so that you can get acquainted with some of the new faces in our program.  We are looking for individual sponsors for each of these new student, so if you are interested in learning more about a particular girl, or stepping up to sponsor her, please let me know!

Gillian, one of Tariro's new students at Highfield High 1

Gillian is currently enrolled in Form 1, her first year of high school studies, at Highfield High 1.  Gillian’s brother also attends Highfield High 1, where he is currently finishing his O level studies.  From an exceptionally bright family, her two older sisters received prestigious Econet scholarships for their A level and university studies.  We have high hopes that Gillian will also be a good candidate for a scholarship for higher level education, and would love to see her go to University in the next five or six years!

Gillian’s father was a professional photographer until he passed away last month after a short illness.  Gillian’s mother is unemployed, and found herself suddenly responsible for covering all of the family’s expenses, including not only daily living expenses, but also her brother’s school fees, as well as transport expenses for her sisters, whose scholarships do not cover this expense.  From a stable home situation, Gillian suddenly found herself in a situation of extreme vulnerability, and was in immediate danger of dropping out of school.

As a grassroots organization, Tariro benefits from close community relationships.  Our sponsorship of Gillian is one example of how the web of our social networks improves our ability to work effectively within vulnerable communities like Highfields.   Gillian is the only student at Highfield High 1 who was not referred to us directly by the Senior Woman at the school.  In this case, Gillian’s family came to the attention of Tariro through one of Gillian’s aunts, Patience Chaitezvi, who is a respected mbira player, and the person who introduced us to Peggy Samhaka, the guidance counselor who helped us identify the new students we are sponsoring this year.  When Patience explained Gillian’s situation, it was immediately obviously to us that she was an excellent candidate for sponsorship, and we encouraged her to apply for our program before we had begun discussing other candidates with Mrs. Samhaka.  Our relationship with Patience thus had the double benefit of helping us identify one student in need in her own extended family, as well as enabling us to build the community relationships we needed at Highfield High 1 to conduct more general outreach, identifying six other students for sponsorship.

In addition to sponsorship through Tariro, Gillian’s family is also receiving a one-time grant of financial support from donations made by members of the Kutsinhira Cultural Arts Center in Eugene, OR, to assist them in covering basic living costs while her mother tries to plan for their future.  Tariro has a close relationship with Kutsinhira, and has received generous donations from Kutsinhira’s Community Development Fund to support our programs in the past.  Today, we are happy to be working side by side Kutsinhira to assist Gillian’s family.

Finally, we are especially happy to be sponsoring Gillian as she is herself a talented mbira player, and will make a wonderful addition to our traditional music and dance ensemble.  We hope that she may even be able to assist us to add an mbira component to the program.

Ambuya Bobo, grandmother of Tariro student Sabina, at Epworth guardians' meeting

I’m writing today with an update on a recent meeting with Tariro students and guardians, held on April 23^rd in the neighborhood of Epworth.  The active involvement of both students and guardians in Tariro’s programs is a critical part of our project, enabling us to better recognize and meet the challenges facing our students, and giving our work depth and meaning from a truly community-based perspective.  Today, I want to give you a glimpse into how students and guardians are actively involved in influencing our work.

During this recent meeting, Tariro guardians in Epworth expressed how grateful they are for the financial support provided by Tariro, and for all of the extra-curricular activities we offer to students.  Many of the guardians actually jumped to their feet to sing songs praising Tariro’s work and encouraging us to continue with the support we offer to the orphaned children in their care.

At Ambuya Bobo's home in Epworth

Guardians also suggested improvements we could make to best help the students, identifying one particularly major concern that has been affecting the Epworth girls.  This concern is the distance the girls have been walking to attend school, which for some of them totals two hours per day to get to school and back home.  Because of this long walk, a few girls have been missing early morning classes.  Students additionally observed that this problem would be even more difficult during the coming winter months, when it is cold and gets dark quickly.  As the girls in Epworth do not have electricity, the long walk to school also makes studying after school a big challenge.

When teaching at many public schools was suspended due to an extended teacher strike and administrative problems in 2008, Tariro transferred Epworth girls to Young Africa Academy, a private college where teaching continued as normal.  By transferring students to YAA, we were able to maintain instruction for our students even in the very challenging educational and social conditions facing students in Zimbabwe during the last few years.  However, this decision came with a trade-off, as the transfer meant a much longer walk to school for many of our students.

At our most recent meeting in Epworth, and after discussing the different options for the girls, we decided in consultation with the guardians that it is time to transfer the students back to a nearby public school, Domboramwari, which is a ten-minute walk from most of their homes. All parents and students agreed that this was a potential solution considering the improvements made in the public sector schools system during the past year.   The headmaster at Domboramwari graciously agreed to enroll the girls in the middle of the year, and we are happy to report that all of our Epworth secondary school students are now attending lessons at Domboramwari.  As the school fees are roughly similar at both schools, we incurred no significant costs in making this transfer.  I’m pleased that Tariro’s small size and flexibility makes it possible for us to respond quickly and effectively to the changing social, economic, and educational circumstances in Zimbabwe, in order to give our students the best possible chance of achieving their educational goals.

Visitor Cai Emmons and program coordinator Fadzi at Epworth guardians meeting

Our Epworth students face many challenges as they do their best to achieve academically despite the lack of electricity and running water in their homes, and given the very basic state of the schools they are able to access.  Thank you for supporting our work with these extremely vulnerable young women, for whom Tariro’s assistance means all the difference in their ability to attend school.

I’ll be traveling back home to the US soon, so look for one or two final posts on the blog while I’m still “in the field” over the next few weeks.  And if you would be interested in having me speak on my experiences in Zimbabwe during the month of June at your school, church, community center, or whatever, please contact me!  I would love to bring photos and talk about my work in person in your community.

The group in Epworth

Step Africa with member of the Chitungwiza Harmony Singers at HIFA 2010

Every year, Zimbabwe celebrates the arts and culture through an annual festival known as the Harare International Festival of the Arts, or HIFA.  With six days of performances in theatre, dance, and music, as well as exhibitions in the visual arts, HIFA is the highlight of Zimbabwe’s arts calendar, and also the highlight of the social calendar for many!  During HIFA, we are privileged to attend performances by world renowned artists and musicians.  And every evening, we party well into the night!

We’ve just finished this year’s HIFA, which began last week, and featured artists including Malian legend Salif Keita, Haitian musician Emeline Michel, Portuguese fado singer Mafalda Arnauth, and the London Festival Opera.  Among the highlights of the festival was the opening show, a production of Carmina Burana featuring local artists as well as members of the London Festival Opera.

Thanks to tickets donated by visiting author Cai Emmons, six members of Tariro’s traditional dance group, as well as our instructor Daniel Inasiyo, were able to attend one or more shows at this year’s festival.  Tariro students watched WoCalling, a collaborative performance by women musicians and dancers from Zimbabwe, in addition to a dance production featuring dancers in training at the Dance Foundation Course run through Zimbabwe’s National Ballet.

Tariro students at Step Africa's performance

The highlight of the performances that our students attended during the festival, however, was definitely Step Africa, whose performance at HIFA was sponsored by the US Embassy in Harare.  This African-American step company performs an energetic style of dance and body percussion similar to South African gumboot.  A uniquely African-American form of expression, step nonetheless resonates strongly with Zimbabwean audiences, who are already familiar with gumboot and other forms of traditional percussive dance.  Our students absolutely loved the show, as we could tell by their excited cheers throughout most of the performance!

Tariro students with Step Africa dancers backstage

After the show Tariro students had the opportunity to go back stage and meet the performers, who spoke about their experiences as professional dancers.  The five Tariro students who attended this show all live in Epworth, an extremely disadvantaged neighborhood without electricity or running water.  As they seldom speak English even at school, they were extremely shy to interact with the dancers.  However, in discussion with dance instructor Daniel Inasiyo, the girls opened up and talked about what they had learned from this performance.  Many of the girls commented that the show had taught them that creativity is not dependent on material objects, and that it is possible to make music and dance using just the body alone.  It seems to me that this is an especially important lesson for girls living in resource-poor settings, and a very unique way that Step Africa was able to communicate across cultural and class boundaries.  The girls also emphasized how much the show had taught them about conveying confidence and expression as performers.  As well, they said they finally understood why we keep trying to encourage them to smile when they are performing!

Step Africa in action

Finally, our instructor Daniel Inasiyo observed that attending this performance was extremely helpful for him as a professional dance teacher and choreographer, and gave him new ideas in his own work with our students.  Maybe we’ll even see some step performances in the future!  The girls are already talking about putting something together to perform for other students at this year’s empowerment camp…

HIFA was also an excellent place for me to network and make connections as executive director.  I’m excited about growing our programs in Zimbabwe, and expanding our local networks is one important way of doing this.  Thank you, readers, for your support on both sides of the Atlantic as we continue our mission of educating and empowering some of Zimbabwe’s most vulnerable girls.

Tariro student Melody at a writing workshop held by author Cai Emmons

Today, I’m sharing author Cai Emmons’s reflections on the writing workshop held for Tariro students last weekend, as well as the remaining three short stories written by participants in the workshops.  Enjoy reading!  Here is Cai’s account of the writing workshop:

On Sunday morning I led a writing workshop with 6 of the Tariro girls who came to Jennifer’s house.  I had decided that I would try to get them to think about character as that pertains to the writing of fiction and often to non-fiction writing as well.

We began by talking about other people: through how they look, how they speak, how they behave, through what others say of them.  Though initially they were shy about speaking, I teased and cajoled them and tried not to fill the silences myself, and eventually they began to talk.  “What have you learned about me and how have you learned it?” I asked and they had plenty of answers!

We then read aloud some excerpts from stories by Sandra Cisneros and Charles Baxter.  We talked about how they created characters on the page, and I encouraged them to be specific in citing text that informed them about the characters.

After a muffin and tea break, I asked them to write about a character of their choosing, either fictional or from their own lives.  I gave them about 15 minutes to work and afterwards we read the results aloud.  You will be (or have been) reading some of the results.

I look forward to working with these students again, over a period of days, perhaps at next year’s empowerment camp.  I would like them to understand the value of rewriting, and to claim writing as a powerful tool for self-expression and for expressing reactions to the world at large.

I loved working with these girls who are so much in the thick of discovering what they have to offer the world.

And here are the remaining stories…

Rachel

Rachel

From the day her husband died people turned their backs on her.  They thought that she was responsible for her husband’s death.

Because of the four children she had, she didn’t give up.  Jean worked very hard so that her children would be educated.   She was a very humble person and most of the people admired her.  Some of the people respected the work she was doing because in her community widows find it difficult to go on with their lives without their husbands.  Her children shared the pain, sorrow and humiliation with their mother from their relatives.  It is said that learning much, suffering much and studying much are the three pillars of education, that’s what her first son did.  He was highly educated and was able to look after his mother and his other brothers.

He thanked his mother because if it wasn’t for her, he would not be educated.

Jean lived happily because of being strong and not giving up on her family because of what other people think or say about her.

Chiedza

Chiedza

“There’s your water” Mary said handing Jane a glass.  Jane smiled graciously at her and waited until Mary had exited the room.  As soon as Mary was gone Jane took the water and poured it into a bowl clearly marked for Butch the family dog.  Jane crouched down on the rough wooden floor and started lapping the water using her toungue.  Just as Mary walked in… A few hours later Mary had been deciding which clothes to wear to dinner and had settled on a turquoise coloured dress, just then Jane walked in and started pulling the dress away from Mary- using her teeth.  Mary ended up wearing a torn dress covered in spirt to the restaurant…. Moonlight shone through the window.  Mary woke up and alked across the room to the window.  She looked out and saw Jane sitting on a rock in the garden.  Mary snuck outside.  The darkness was here and there was no sound except a loud piercing howl.  “I knew it” Mary said walking nearer.  Mary saw Jane start to get hairy and saw very sharp teetch replace Janes normal ones.  Just then Jane let out a piercing howl.  Mary realized she had gotten her suspisions all wrong- Jane wasn’t half dog, She was part-warewolf…

Pauline

Pauline

I had been admiring him for quite a long time and finally this other day, he was there, standing alone, leaning on a wall, with his legs crossed and his arms crossed at his chest.  His shoulders revealing a muscular somebody; somebody who is energetic and very active.  His handsome face was enlightened by a shining smile.  Slowly, he then said, “Hie, my name is Taurai, would you mind if we can talk for a while.”  Without any hesitation, I told him that I was not rushing anywhere so it was nice to have a small chat with him.  We started talking about our backgrounds and the conversation ended up being an intimate one as we gradually discovered that we were both interested in each other.  He was someone who was very open and this was the right man I was looking for!

Watch out for chapter 2

Writing workshop with author Cai Emmons

One of the reasons I’ve been posting less frequently on the blog during the past few weeks is that I’ve been busy hosting a Tariro visitor here in Zimbabwe.  Today, I’d like to tell you a bit about her visit.

Cai Emmons, a published author and professor of creative writing at the University of Oregon, is deeply involved in supporting Tariro’s work, and has been visiting to get to know our girls and see our programs in action.  This past Sunday, five Tariro students, accompanied by two other young women participating as guests of the program, took part in a creative writing workshop facilitated by Cai.  After reading excerpts of work by Sandra Cisneros and Charles Baxter, the girls discussed what goes into developing a fictional character, and practiced writing short excerpts which they then presented to the group.

Tariro students Pauline, Rachel, and Melody at the writing workshop

The girls invited to participate in the workshop included Tatenda and Daphine, who recently finished their A levels and plan to attend university this coming year, as well as Pauline, a Tariro student working toward her degree at the University of Zimbabwe.  These three university level students were joined by Rachel and Melody, two of our more advanced O level students, in addition to two invited guests, Lillian and Chiedza.   Tatenda and Melody have both been profiled in previous posts, if you are interested in reading more about these two individual girls.

Today, I’m including four of the seven pieces written by the girls during the workshop for you to read.  I’ll post the other three sometime early next week.  I’ve left the pieces written by the girls unedited, so that you will get a feel not only for their individual voices as writers, but also for the level of their writing.

Melody

From the way she looked, one would tell what sort of a person she was.  Getty was a very hardworking woman who looked after her two daughters well.  She was also a widow.  She was very strict and sometimes said to her daughter, “when you are sharpening your pencils, the pencil is the one which is supposed to turn around and not the sharpener.”  She always had to go to other people’s fields to work so as to earn a living.  Getty’s mother was old and she was the one responsible for taking care of her mother and her two daughters.

One day, she became sick.  She did not have money for the hospital bills and her first daughter, Melody, had to take care of her, clean up all the messes.  She had T.B. and had a big ulcer at the back of her leg.  The doctors could not find the cure for her wound or ulcer.  Day after day, she continued to be worse and finally she died, living her daughter with no one to look after them.

Maybe if I was a doctor, I would have helped her.

NB. This made me think f becoming a doctor so as to save other children’s mother’s lives.

Daphine

As she walked into the kitchen, there was silence.  The only sound that could be heard was that of a clock tocking on the wall, and as usual the annoying sound of the metal spoon hitting the dhaga plate coming from little Zanile.  Mrs. Tubili strolled to her usual place and dragged the chair so she could sit.  It was time for dinner.

She had black short curly hair that she liked to maintain.  She was tall and dark and that evening she was looking stunning in her grey outfit which was probably one of her favourites.  Mrs. Tubili tapped her fingers on the table as she looked at her empty plate.  Everyone knew what that meant.  Melissa who was younger than Karen stood up to dish her food.  It was mufushwa and sadza.  She didn’t finish dishing the last of the relish as she had noticed the facial expression on her difcicult mother.

“Well, what do we have here my dear?  If its not those dried greens again that your father keep bringing from the village all the time.  She drew her chair from the table and stood up firmly.  “I shall have spaghetti and plain sauce for dinner and I want it in 10 minutes.”  Mrs. Tubili walked away leaving everyone speechless.

Tatenda

When I have a problem, I don’t hesitate, I just rush to Rosinah, Why? because she is so caring; politely, “are you okay” she always ask me.  She is also someone who is down to earth, she never boast about herself though she is capable of boasting, rather she is an incourager, “I know you can do it!” those are always her words whenever we are together.  She even incourage me to work hard, “sweat for sweet dear, and this is the most reason why I like her.

What else can I say about this nice woman, she is nice more than the word nice itself, I would like to believe that she is a gift from heaven to her community and family, and I am sure everyone who saw her will confess the words “ichi chipo chedenga.”  Aa-ah she is my role model.

Lillian

Its dawn everyone is in the house, except one.  “Do we want this person to come home tonight?” I asked myself as I say relaxed in the our sitting room.  The back door opened, we looked at each other with our eyes wide open.  Within a second we had everything in order- “Bang,” the door shuts and the ocrridor floor makes strange sounds.  We here footsteps like those of an elephant getting closer.  I feel like crying, running away, “What do I do?  I hate this time of the day, worse still, ‘today.’  Jane is worse, she has drawned herself in the left porch near the French door, with her pal face.  I knoe her heart is pounding very hard, I am afraid she might find it in her arms.  We broke the Mazda 203 window and now the boss is here.  Daddy will kill us.  Evening we all said, He sits down opens his newspaper and says manheru as if we didn’t welcome him first.  anyway, “that’s him” a serious man indeed, we don’t even remember a second we saw him smile, do we know the color of his teeth, I don’t think so.

The group at the writing workshop

Tariro students in Epworth model their new shirts

Today, I’d like to write a very short post to acknowledge the support of the members of South Eugene High School’s National Honors Society.  These high school students from Eugene, Oregon learned of Tariro’s work last year.  Not only did they donate $1,000 to help us pay school fees for the students we support in Zimbabwe, but they also made a personal gesture by donating t-shirts to give to Tariro students.  It’s taken us a while to get them to Zimbabwe, but twenty-three of the donated shirts were finally brought over last week by Tariro volunteer Cai Emmons, who is now visiting.

Looking good! New shirts for Tariro students in Glen Norah

On Friday, we took a trip out to Epworth to meet with students and their parents, giving shirts to students in this branch of our program.  Just this morning in Glen Norah, we distributed more shirts to members of the traditional dance group at their weekly Saturday rehearsal.  And on Monday, we will be giving the remaining shirts to students in the rural area of Mhondoro.  As you can see from the photos, our students were extremely happy and excited to get new clothes!  Thank you SEHS NHS members for your support!!

Melody M. observes Operation of Hope surgery at St. Anne's Hospital

I’m writing this week to share photos from a very unique experience one of Tariro’s students, Melody M., was recently privileged to experience.  Melody, who has been featured in a profile included in a previous post, is a Form 4 student finishing her last year of O level studies.  We have high hopes she will pass her O level exams and proceed to A levels and on to university, where she wishes to train as a doctor or nurse.  Last year, Melody attended a mentorship program administered by the US Embassy in Harare, where she met with the head of the CDC and the Zimbabwean Minister of Health, learning about the role of medicine in public health.

This past week, Melody had yet another glimpse into the field of medicine at St. Anne’s hospital, where she was invited to observe cleft palate surgeries being performed by doctors from the US, volunteering with the organization Operation of Hope.  At St. Anne’s, Melody was given a tour of the hospital, speaking with nurses and meeting with patients and their families, including children waiting for their surgeries with Operation of Hope, as well as those recovering from their operations.

A future medical student

Melody then donned scrubs and went into the operating room to observe an actual surgery.  The support staff was careful to tell her that she should turn away and let someone know immediately if she felt faint.  However, when the doctors invited her to observe their work from up close, Melody was positively fascinated, and spent at least half an hour watching the doctors as they narrated their work to her, explaining the process of the surgery and the anatomy involved.  I was extremely impressed with Melody’s professional attitude and genuine interest.  Now we know she has potential for a career in medicine… as long as she manages to pass those math exams!!

Tariro students from Epworth at an embroidery workshop on Saturday

I have to open this post with an admission.  A couple of time each year, I start to feel overwhelmed with all of the challenges of running Tariro.  Despite being the organization’s executive director. I am a non-paid volunteer.  Yet at the end of the day, I find myself responsible for all of the various aspects of this small, but complex nonprofit.  Are our girls making progress in school?  Do we need to change our administrative structure?  Update the website?  Navigate between the girls’ obligations to attend church on Easter weekend and our dance director’s wish to hold extra rehearsals with them?  Not to mention the biggest challenge, that of fundraising… I am always struggling to be sure we have the funds necessary to maintain our programs.  And each time I start to get overwhelmed I think, maybe I should just let this thing go.  Is it really all worth the effort?  Are we even really making a change?

Lately, I’ve been feeling this way again.  Until this past Saturday, that is, when a wonderful day of work with Tariro changed my attitude completely.  And in addition to admitting to my frustration, I also recognize that every time I get discouraged with the challenges we face, a personal interaction with our families never fails to convince me of three very important things.  One, we are making a huge difference in the lives of families caring for orphaned children.  Two, we are able to make a life-changing intervention for many of our students, transforming their futures completely.  And three, as long as we are able to have this huge effect, even if it is only in the lives of a few dozen students, I feel a strong desire to keep Tariro’s work going.

So what happened on Saturday to turn my perspective around?  It’s a long story… but one worth reading.  I’m going to give it to you in installments, with one post each day for the rest of this week… so for now, here’s the first part of what my Saturday looked like.

The disaster of the car

First, the disaster of the car.  Public transport is notoriously slow here, consisting of a system of private minibuses, or kombis, with set routes radiating outward from the city center to various neighborhoods.  To change from one route to the next, you may have to walk thirty minutes or more in the city center.  This makes it tough to do more than one or two simple things in a day, and I’m very dependent on my car to enable me to work efficiently on days like Saturday, where my schedule looked like this:

• Pick up Mai Chipira on the corner of Takawira and 2^nd St.
• But a box of green bar soap to distribute to our students’ guardians
• Stop by Tariro’s dance rehearsal at Chembira school to collect our student Rachel
• Take Rachel to the Tariro library to give embroidery instruction to Mai Chipira, as well as Tariro’s Epworth students
• Proceed to our trustee Cosmas Magaya’s house to attend a meeting with the guardians of Tariro’s Glen Norah and Highfield students
• Get back home, dressed, and off to capoeira class, on the other side of town, by 3:30pm

This was definitely a schedule that required my car… which was in the garage with its innards spilled out all over the place.  So I hopped on a kombi and made my way into town, meeting Mai Chipira and walking thirty minutes to the corner where we could buy a box of soap and catch the kombis to Glen Norah.  By this time, we was running over an hour late.  It was clear that we weren’t going to make it in time to do an embroidery workshop before the meeting with our students’ guardians.

Enter Fadzi with a car!

Luckily, in response to the disaster of the car, there was Tariro’s program director, Fadzi.  I think I detected a certain bright light shining around her head as she pulled up in a car which her sister very generously loaned us for the day.  So we piled into the car with Mai Chipira and our twenty-four bars of soap and headed off to Glen Norah… picked up Rachel… and made it to the office with an hour to go before the meeting with the guardians…

The missing keys

…only to discover that Fadzi had left the library keys at home!!!  The day was turning into a comedy of errors… good thing our librarian, Senzeni, has a second set of keys, and lives not far from the library.  Finally, after a twenty minute detour to her house to collect the keys. we were all seated on the veranda outside of Tariro’s library, embroidery materials in hand, with Rachel at the ready to instruct our Epworth students, as well as Mai Chipira.  I asked Fadzi to start the guardians’ meeting without me so that I could take some photos of the embroidery workshop.  And as soon as I sat down on the veranda with the girls and started to observe the results of Tariro’s assistance to this group of students, I realized once again: this is really what our work is all about.

The small successes

I’ll start with the small successes.  For me, the embroidery project is especially meaningful, as it was initiated by the students themselves.  In addition, it combines some of the best aspects of being a collaborative project, and one which is self-sustaining.  One collaborative aspect of the project is that the initial group of students to begin the sewing club, who live in the Mhondoro rural areas, were taught to sew by a member of another wonderful organization, Nhimbe for Progress.  Nhimbe runs an amazing grassroots development project, with programs ranging from a preschool to a clinic.  I love it that the women of Nhimbe cared enough about our girls to reach out and teach them to sew, representing a true sharing of skills at the grassroots level.  Thank you Nhimbe!

A huge thank-you also goes out to all of our friends in the United States who donated embroidery thread, needles, hoops, and other materials for the project.  With these materials, we will be able to keep the program running for at least several months.

Mai Chipira learns to sew at the embroidery workshop

And finally, in addition to bringing in a few dollars in extra income for the girls who are sewing the panels, the project has also contributed toward Tariro’s sustainability, as sales of the panels in the US brings in income which helps support our ongoing programs and activities.

The big successes

The embroidery club is a small way in which we are making a difference for our students.  The truly transformative difference, however, lies in the formal education girls are able to complete with sponsorship from Tariro.  As I sat on the verandah watching the girls sew, students started to pass by the library on their way to the guardians’ meeting.  As schools have closed for a month-long break, our boarding school students are home for the holidays.  Soon I was surrounded by four boarding students, each of them eager to show me their report book.  Not surprisingly, our star students Pamela and Polite, are doing amazingly well, and continue to be among the top students at their school.

The really unexpected results, however, were those obtained by our other two boarding school students, Ruth and Netty. Last y ear, we placed both of these girls in boarding school not because of their academic potential, but because of the very desperate situations they were living it at home.  Although they were failing at school, we decided to pay the extra money for boarding school primarily to remove them from their terrible home situations, without having any idea whether this opportunity would have any positive effect on their school performance.  After just three terms at boarding school, however, both of these two young women are passing at least five subjects, the minimum number of O levels required to proceed to A level studies.  I never would have predicted that either of these girls would be able to go on to A level studies.  But it looks like both of them may have that chance, depending on their final exam results.  I can’t tell you how overjoyed I was to see the changes we’ve made in their lives.

This kind of outcome is exactly what I dreamed of achieving when Tariro first started working with girls six years ago.  It reaffirms our individualized approach to working with students on a one-on-one basis, and responding flexibly to each girl’s situation.  It especially reaffirms our dedication to having the budgetary flexibility to allocate additional resources to girls with particular needs.  For girls like Ruth and Netty, Tariro’s support is the difference between a life filled with opportunities and one without hope. And Tariro’s commitment to foster the same group of young women all the way though secondary school gives us the unique opportunity to watch these girls learn, grow, and develop into truly impressive young women with bright futures.

Natalie S.'s grandmother

A thank you from our students’ guardians

Finally, my dedication to Tariro was further reinforced at the guardians’ meeting.  Elderly grandmothers, aunts, and widowed mothers collected on the front porch of the home of one of our trustees, Cosmas Magaya, expressing their thankfulness and gratitude for Tariro’s support.  Like Natalie S.’s grandmother, pictured above, many of the guardians made it clear that Tariro’s assistance is absolutely critical to enabling them to meet the expenses of raising the orphaned children under their care.  Without our support, many of these girls would be attending school only sporadically, if at all.

Thanks to funds donated by friends in the United States, including many members of the Kutsinhira Cultural Arts Center, Tariro was able to provide each of our students guardians with a bar of soap as a thank-you for the time they took out of their days to attend the meeting.  As one of our guardians said to us, maoko anopa anoropafadzwa naMwari, or “hands that give are blessed by God.”  For me, the opportunity to give back to the community though Tariro’s work is truly the biggest blessing of all.  To all readers and friends back home, thank you so, so much for supporting Tariro’s work!!