No country for old men

Homes in Zimbabwe provides funds to refurbish and equip old people’s homes in the country. With hyperinflation, these homes are suffering from an acute cashflow crisis and are unable to continue without external help. The majority of their residents are the widows of professional people who have lived all their lives in Zimbabwe. Their pensions have become worthless through inflation and they have nowhere else to go.
The charity was set up four years ago and last year, thanks to generous donations, was able to provide more than £160,000 worth of food, fuel and other vital equipment. The charity is entirely staffed by volunteers, who receive no pay for their efforts, and keeps a close eye on what is happening in Zimbabwe to ensure money always gets to where it’s needed rather than into the pockets of officials.
Of course, they are not the only organisation working to help older people. In 2007, Homes in Zimbabwe made closer contacts with Zimbabwe a National Emergency (ZANE) in the UK and other charities working in Zimbabwe.  
“This development ensures that we are all working together to try and bring maximum relief to the elderly in Zimbabwe,” says the charity’s Chairman Nigel Kay.
“Whilst ZANE provides assistance to individual pensioners, Homes in Zimbabwe provides support to old people’s homes and communities. We pay the cost of infrastructure repairs and now, increasingly, food and fuel.”
Last year, Homes in Zimbabwe was also asked to support the charity SOAP, which provides regular parcels of food and toiletries to pensioners who are still living in their own homes. Two SOAP organisations operate in Harare and Bulawayo. Traditionally, both have been well supported, but have been struggling because there is so little food available locally. Homes in Zimbabwe is now importing food from South Africa on a regular basis for distribution by SOAP volunteers.

Funds are raised in all kinds of ways – from individual donations to one-off events. Last year, three young Zimbabweans, who have had to leave their homes and settle in England, set out to canoe 132 miles from the source of the UK’s River Thames to Teddington Lock.

They took four days to complete the course – paddling more than 945,000 strokes each, and raising £21,000 from their sponsors.
Sometimes, support comes in kind. Thanks to the initiative and help of a local businessman, Homes in Zimbabwe is supplying eggs to a large number of old people’s homes in the Harare area. Eggs provide much needed protein for elderly people, but disappeared from supermarket shelves after the Government imposed price limits.
The charity is distributing more than 9,000 eggs a month.

From human fuel to generator fuel – the charity also supplied more than 40,000 litres of diesel and petrol to old people’s homes last year. But, with power cuts more frequent and for up to 21 hours a day, requirements for 2008 could rise enormously just to keep emergency generators running. That’s one of the reasons the charity is making constant appeals for support and has a web page at www.justgiving.com/hiz/donate so that people can make donations from anywhere in the world. For UK taxpayers, this method of giving gives the charity an extra 28p for every £1 donated.