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Herald Reporter
The Air Force of Zimbabwe, through the Commander AFZ Charity Fund (CAFZCF) yesterday handed over wheelchairs and other devices to 10 physically challenged people as part of its corporate social responsibility.

The 10 people were drawn from the country’s 10 provinces.

In his speech, AFZ Commander Air Marshal Elson Moyo, said the 10 were carefully selected as initial beneficiaries.

“Since its inception, the CAFZCF has been mostly concentrating on assisting marginalised communities through the provision of health services and education facilities among others,” he said.

He said they were also seized with plans to identify new projects to assist communities from remote areas.

“Once due diligence has been done on the potential projects, these will then be recommended to your (the chairperson of CAFZCF) board for approval,” Air Marshal Moyo said.

CAFZCF chairperson Professor Hope Sadza said the thrust of the Commander AFZ had been among others, to assist the underprivileged in remote areas.

“Assistance has been in various forms like construction of schools and clinics, renovation of the afore mentioned, scholarships to intelligent, but unaffording children, clothing donations to individuals, stationery, computer donations and sourcing of e-learning facilities for schools,” she said.

She said the country has over 1,5 million people who had disability challenges that were physiological, functional and mobility related.

“Notably, many of these people do not have assistive devices that can help them to function independently or with little or no assistance. Affordability and ignorance are cited by individuals in such circumstances as reasons for not having the devices,” Prof Sadza said.

She said disability remained one of the major causes for dependency and deprivations throughout the world.

She said an environment filled with physical, attitudinal and communication barriers make people living with impairments endure discrimination to some extent.

The event was attended senior AFZ officers and officials from the Ministry of Public Service, Labour and Social Welfare, among  others.