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Days of Hope staff hand over books to Makundano Primary School children recently

Christopher Farai Charamba Features Writer
Charity begins at home and home is where the heart is or so the two popular adages tell us. Unfortunately, not everyone is able to live at home for various reasons and often migrate to other towns, countries and continents.

Another famous maxim states that absence makes the heart grow fonder and this rings true for scores of Zimbabweans residing in the Diaspora. There are those who long to return home and those who wish to make a meaningful contribution to their country from wherever they reside.

Those in the Diaspora always enquire about the situation at home; they want to be associated with their roots.

Others have gone a step further than just enquiring and sending a few dollars for the families back home to launching organisations to raise resources to develop their roots.

One such is Days of Hope, an organisation founded in Australia by Zimbabweans, who felt the need to give back to their home country and particularly their ghettos of Mufakose and Dzivarasekwa.

“We mustn’t forget our roots. What everyone must know is Zimbabwe is our home. We might be doing well here in the Diaspora but charity must begin at home. That is our motto,” says Mrs Oferya Kicheni-Parr, a project organiser and founder of Days of Hope.

She said that the conception of the charity organisation started when she and some fellow Zimbabweans in Gippsland, Victoria, Australia, thought it would be a good idea to make some donation back home.

“Our aim is to help the disadvantaged schools and community realise their dreams. It is only a way of giving back to our community, those places that built us as individuals. It no longer makes sense to continue crying for foreign aid when we can make a difference in our own small way.

“Everyone among us must play their part and we will not fail. I am happy when I am playing my part in improving my roots,” she said.

Days of Hope started with the printing of small fliers asking for donations to send back home. Though the initial response was modest and the organisation managed to gather a few books, clothes and other items.

“Things changed when our endeavour was picked up by the local paper in Gippsland, Latrobe Valley Express, which wrote an article about us. After that the response was overwhelming and we started to receive items from all over Australia,” she said.

With a rapidly growing response from the community in terms of material and cash donations, Mrs Kicheni-Parr along with her colleague, a former teacher at Makundano Primary School in Mufakose, Agnes Chikanda decided to open Days of Hope as a charitable organisation and registered it in Australia as well as registering a partner organisation here in Zimbabwe.

“In our initial project we were able to fill two 20-foot containers with goods to send back to Zimbabwe. We also sought the assistance of lawyers to register our charity and also manage the shipping process of the goods.

“Our first shipment was sent in December 2013, however, being a new organisation we were unaware of the various customs regulations on the Zimbabwean side. This delayed the processing of the goods and we were only able to manage that in December 2014.

“This prompted us to register Days of Hope in Zimbabwe as well and now we have all the necessary paperwork to ensure that we will not have any other complications,” Mrs Kicheni-Parr said.

Days of Hope has managed to collect items that range from books, furniture, sports equipment, musical instruments, children’s toys and clothes. Working mainly in the communities with which they are familiar, they have distributed some of the items to schools and the underprivileged.

Makundano Primary is one of the beneficiaries of Days of Hope. Ms Agnes Chikanda, a former teacher at the school, is an influential member of Days of Hope in Australia and wanted to help the school where she was stationed before migrating to Australia.

“Before I returned to Zimbabwe to oversee the collection of the containers and the distribution of some of the donated items, Agnes said that some of the books and stationery should be donated to her former school Makundano Primary.

“As soon as I arrived I contacted the headmistress and made an appointment to come and make the donations,” said Mrs Kicheni-Parr.

Makundano Primary has an enrolment of 1 119 children from ECD to Grade Seven. The school received reading and exercise books as well as stationery, puzzles and board games.

The school has since established a library.

The headmistress, Ms Getrude Katedza, was extremely grateful for the donation.

“I have been trying for very long to open a library here and wondering how we could raise the funds to do so. We never expected something like this and are very grateful for what Days of Hope has done for us.

“Most of these children struggle with reading and speaking English because they do not have sufficient material to read. The donation means that we can now have the children come at different times to use the books and better their reading skills,” she said.

Ms Katedza was particularly impressed by the fact that it was people in the Diaspora who had taken the time to remember those they had left behind in Zimbabwe. She stressed that it was important for other Zimbabweans in the diaspora to take notice of the work Days of Hope was doing.

“A lot of people leave Zimbabwe but do not remember where they came from. It is important that those who leave make contributions to their communities, especially the schools that they came from so that we can continue to give the best education to students.

“People forget that it was the education they received at those schools that helped them to get where they are. They need to assist us as educators so that we can help other students to be able to make it to those heights as well,” the headmistress stressed.

Days of Hope Charity has also assisted Harare Hospital Children’s Ward with toys.

With their second consignment expected in the coming weeks Days of Hope Zimbabwe is looking to partner with other organisations in order to assist more people.

“We are still a young and growing organisation and hope to partner with other people so that we can benefit more people around the country. Our targets are schools, orphans, generation gap households and the severely underprivileged,” said Shepard Chidamahiya, chairman of Days of Hope Zimbabwe

The charity organisation is also looking to open a resource centre in Dzivarasekwa where they are based. A patron in Australia donated two organs and as such they are looking to use the resource centre to be a place where children from the community can come and learn to play instruments.

“It is important for children to grow up and learn as many skills as possible. We already have two organs that some of the children from the neighbourhood are being taught to play but we are hoping to be given a place by the city council to open a resource centre.

“We are also looking to get other instruments from Australia as well as computers and sporting equipment in order to make the resource centre multi-faceted to benefit a lot of people,” Mr Chidamahiya added.

The initiative that Days of Hope has undertaken shows that once someone has left their country they can still make a meaningful contribution. Their work has not been without difficulties, however, the passion they have for their country makes the Zimbabweans working under this charity exemplary ambassadors for their country and role models to others living abroad.

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