LETTICIA MAGOMBO
Community-based organisation, Shanduko Yeupenyu Child Care, is raising funds to send girls from disadvantaged backgrounds in Epworth district, Harare to school, Business Times can report.
Epworth is a vulnerable community with a large population of disadvantaged children without access to education.
Shanduko Yeupenyu’s programmes manager, Lloyd Kwambana, told Business Times that that they are undertaking a raffle project to raise the funds.
“As Shanduko Yeupenyu we are responding mainly to girls’ needs. The reason we came up with this idea is to mobilise financial resources to allow them to be in school and to remain in school and to achieve what they aim to achieve through school,” Kwambana said, adding the main focus is girls that are from secondary through to A- level.
For those at university, the community based organisation will source scholarships for them, he said.
Kwambana said his organisation has been supporting girls in Epworth but the rate of children in need is growing by day.
“So, we have to think of other opportunities or platforms to raise funds. That’s why we came up with the raffle project. For now, it is having a great response in terms of people coming in to play to see how we can support,” he said.
Kwambana said they targeted girls as they encountered the most challenges in the community.
“Epworth is a vulnerable community where girls end up falling into early marriages, early sexual activities, drugs, alcohol abuse because the girl is idle but now if we create platforms like these, we raise funds for the girls to be supported. We can reduce the rate of child marriages in Epworth through this support and so much more and at the end of the day we have a great success story.”
The organisation he said had so far managed to help a few girls with much success.
“One of our success stories is that we have girls that have surpassed our expectations in terms of academic excellence. Some are doing law at the University of Zimbabwe.
Some are into social work, and have different career paths in different institutions in Zimbabwe.”
The organisation works with school authorities in Epworth to identify children who are in need who are then referred to Shanduko Yeupenyu for them to be assisted.
