MBARE - Louisa is mentally disturbed. She is restless and cant sit still. The slight, slim person, malnourished and neglected, has several wounds, not quite healed yet, on her head: her husband, if you can call him that, has been abusing her, i.e. he has been beating and kicking her badly. We try to get her into a home where she can recover and regain her mental baOur young people need work. We suggested some skills training so they can make things and sell them if there is a market for them. But they are not interested, they want to be business people, buying and selling things.
But even to do that they need some training in good business practices and book-keeping. They have to form a cooperative and work as a group; that needs honesty and mutual trust. I hope we can convince them to have patience and learn the trade properly. They seem to dream of getting rich quick.
School has reopened. Long lines of parents are queuing up to ask for help: they cannot pay the school fees for their children, or for orphans they are bringing up alongside their own children. So many people these days have to bring up nephews and nieces left them by their late brothers or sisters.
With the help of kind-hearted people elsewhere we help with 50 % of the fees if they are genuinely in need and the children are keen on their education. 100 % is not feasible. It may also give parents or guardians the idea that now that the Church is looking after their children they themselves no longer need to worry.
Many families are in dire need. Many children come to school hungry, without having had breakfast. They are weak and fail to concentrate. The teachers have a hard time with children like that. So now we give them, due to some generous donors, a little breakfast at mid-morning break, porridge or Mahewu. I am told even some teachers line up for a little helping. Classroom work with Mbare children is not easy and they need some energizing food, I suppose.
Suddenly we have many more power-cuts than before. No power means no water: the electrical pump cannot bring the water up from a borehole. No water means 1500 children cannot flush the toilets. Disaster!
Can the headmaster make that clear to the ZESA managers? – Oskar Wermter SJ, In Touch Jesuit Communications
Post published in: News