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Nyore Madzianike Manicaland Bureau
GWESE High School in Mutare South constituency has appealed to well-wishers to assist at least a third of their students who are struggling to raise fees because they are either orphaned or economically vulnerable. The school head, Mr Webster Podzo said the school had an enrolment of 297 students. Some of the students, he added, came from child-headed families. Out of the 297 students, 102 are either orphaned or economically vulnerable. He said as part of efforts to mitigate the challenges the school was facing, they had formed a community counselling forum spearheaded by members of the community and teachers.

“We have a community counselling committee and basically under the organisation’s umbrella name we have formed a Children and Adolescents Counselling and Care. We hope to cater for both economic and social needs of the students by offering psycho-social support. We are appealing for donations. This is a big project, which I feel is geared for an enormous radial expansion, maybe also expanding to our feeder primary schools and other secondary schools around the area.

“We might end up incorporating schools in Mutare. We have also discovered that the once orphaned and vulnerable children are now orphaned and vulnerable adolescents because the ones we used to call children are now in adolescence. What we appeal for from the community and well-wishers is funding for the project we started and also funding our water project, ICT and a library,” he said.

Mr Podzo said as a school they decided to adopt the initiative after noting that the pass rate and behaviour among students was not improving. He said once the initiative got funding they were hoping to take it to other schools.

“I studied the behavioural pattern of our children and discovered that the pass rate was not improving. We noted that it was actually nose-diving and the level of indiscipline was also high with some being rebellious to the authorities. It was then that I discovered that most of the children were orphaned or vulnerable. To address the situation, we then set up the Community Counselling Committee,” he said.

The school development committee chairperson, Mr Gabriel Mhlanga also echoed the same sentiments saying the school needed assistance. Mutare South Member of Parliament Cde Nyasha Chikwinya is expected to commission a resource centre at the school on October 28, 2017.