How education can transform the lives of children in rural Zimbabwe

Event: #UpForSchool event at Melford Farm, Goromonzi in Zimbabwe – a very rural community.

Present: Lisa Chiriseri (GYA and founder of FACEZ Edu Fund), Invision Studios team

The purpose: To show the children what they can achieve if they focus on their education and persevere past the hardships they face.

It was to reinstate in them the value of education and inspire them to dream bigger and further – beyond the rural farm borders that have been all they know.

Also to make the community leaders and guardians of the children aware of the importance of education and to show them that their children’s education was the key to family, community and social transformation for them all.

It was also to bring exposure to the foundation and the children and their needs through the media. We had a local paper cover and publish a story on the foundation’s founder Mr Matanga and his work – and we have already begun to receive calls of support for the children’s education.

My organisation already sponsors 16 children out there with school fees, which is the major barrier to access to education. The next steps are to fundraise for more children’s fees.

The foundation: MEST foundation looks after over 70 children who are double and single parent orphans and who have nowhere to go because they are third-generation farm families and have no tangible connections to where they came from. Due to the lack of farming activity there is no work and families suffer from extreme hunger and poverty.

Mr Matanga of MEST foundation is definitely #UpForSchool! For more than 10 years he has fundraised for tuition fees for the children as well as for food and their other needs. He and his family personally take care of the many children who have absolutely no one.