The TWF Executive Director, Ellen Vengere, walked The Zimbabwean through the history, trials and tribulations of her organisation.
Tony Waite was an employee of the Zambezi River Authority. He did not have a family and left his wealth to set up a foundation to assist people living with HIV. The trustees of Waite’s will, Shelly Cavender, Bernard Paulla, James Gumbo and an unnamed local pastor, became founders of the institution.
“Initially Waite’s money was channelled to the money market from which profits were used. In 2007 offices were established for the first time in Kariba and TWF started to function as a community-based organisation. Due to the economic meltdown in 2008 the money market collapsed and the little money that was being realized also vanished,” said the foundation’s director, Ellen Vengere.
In 2011 the foundation was registered under the Ministry of Labour and Social Welfare as a public voluntary organisation. “We now have three full time members of staff who work in collaboration with 60 volunteers. Before registering with the ministry we worked as a home-based care group under the auspices of the National AIDS Council. “Because of the needs of the community we were requested by the people to initiate community-based projects to improve the livelihood of vulnerable groups, with a bias towards women and youth,” she said. Their major development partner isNew Zealand AID, which assisted them to scale up paediatric anti-retroviral-therapy.
“Since our community is surrounded by game parks where wild-life roam frequently we embarked on a farming project which we fenced using electrical wire to keep the animals at bay. As the area is also characterised by hot weather, we provided shade cloth to cover the crops. We are cultivating a variety of vegetables and maize,” she added.
At Charara Estate, a banana farm where over 100 families are based, the foundation assists farm workers living with HIV. “We agreed with the farm owner and he allocated his workers a piece of land where they are doing their gardening and selling the surplus,” said Vengere. Health facilities are scarce in Kariba. Chinhoyi District Hospital is the nearest – and it is 200 km away.
“Kariba Hospital has only one CD4 count machine, which came recently. Before that we took patients across the Zambezi River to Zambia where the nearest hospital is just 15 km away to have their CD4 count taken for them to be put on ART or reviewed properly. But the immigration department has since stopped allowing patients without passports to cross the border and we now have to take blood samples across the river using our vehicle,” she lamented.
Like many local organisation, TWF is facing financial problems. But through dedication to their work they continue – running a poultry project to cover daily expenses.
“Only 15 percent of donor funding is allowed to cater for administration activities and we are also planning to have more projects to cater for that,” she Vengere.
“Thank God last month we managed to secure funding from USAID for a kapenta project of buying and selling.”
She advised other community-based organisations to audit their businesses and run them as professional entities in order to attract donor funding. “As a registered community-based organisation that has participated in a two-year course on governance, financial management and aligning its work to the national strategic health plans, USAID saw it necessary to assist us.
They have given us $90,676 as a first phase of funding and if we spend it according to the agreed plan and invite credible auditors, they will grant us a further $250,000 to continue our activities,” she said.
Post published in: News