Beauty: This work requires love

3 minute read

We help children, both our own and those who are not our own, out of love.

My name is Beauty. I am a mother of six children, and I am a member of the local Parent Support Group here in Chikomba, Zimbabwe .

Parent Support Groups are CAMFED Champions who pool resources to support children in school, such as providing school meals, purchasing school-going essentials, and safeguarding vulnerable students. 

We started partnering with CAMFED in 2006 to support children in our community because we saw the importance of this work. 

We bring maize flour from home and cook for the children at school. We bring everything from home including pots, tomatoes, salt, everything. We can feed up to 252 children at a time!

Three of us visiting the school.

During droughts when we did not have maize flour to cook at schools, we would support the community in the village. We would help elderly women and men by finding firewood for them, washing their clothes, or giving them food. 

We also continued supporting activities here at the school. We were able to buy books and pens for 40 children. One of the schoolchildren did not have money for his school fees. Ten of us in the group contributed money, and we managed to raise enough to pay the child’s fees. He sat for his examinations and did very well. We were very happy about that.

Our group is even stronger since CAMFED has been supporting us with grants. Our first grant was $400. We bought two large containers and buckets for fetching water. We also bought plates for serving the children, cups, knives, dish towels and soap for washing the utensils. We bought matches to light the fire when cooking. 

Then, in 2024, CAMFED provided additional food for the children. We have also been receiving vegetable seedlings. These vegetables help us. We tend them, harvest them and use them when cooking for the children. When there is a surplus, we can sell the vegetables and use the money to buy pens for the children.

Now, we cook for students twice a week. We can also buy children the things they do not have. For example, we supported 36 children by giving them socks. It was very cold, and the children’s socks were worn out and dirty, and they were struggling because some of them only had one pair.

We also have our CAMFED Association members – young women leaders educated with CAMFED support. We work together with them while we are cooking school meals. Some of them come to check on their children, or come over to the cooking area and wash dishes, or help with other tasks.  

We encourage each other to show love and serve our children. With the support we are receiving, we also support other children, serve them, and work together with them. We work hard to establish meaningful projects that can also help us as groups, so that we are not only helping children, but also supporting our families and the wider community.