Our orphanage is the only one in Gweru taking in street children. In 1996 the leaders of the orphanage moved into a small white concrete building in Mkoba together with a bunch of street children. Here they had a roof over their head, daily meals and opportunity to go to schools. They also had caring grown ups around them.

Even though the old orphanage was a good place to be for the previously street children, it also had a lot of challenges. 30 children were sharing 14 beds, which made them have to sleep on turn. The house didn’t have a dining area, nor a lounge, and the children had to eat outside on the rocks. Homework were also done outside since they didn’t have lights. The outside area was so small that they couldn’t play or relax after a long school day. No closets or anything, so everything they had was placed on their beds or the floor. The small place made it impossible to take in both girls and boys, soomething that made the girls be left in the streets.

Because of the situation at the old orphanage we decided to build a new orphanage for the children. October 2014 we bought a 5000 sqm land in the township of Mkoba.

Two houses finalized!

According to zimbabwean law we had to build the children’s homes as small family units. Each unit has room for 10 children and one adult, with its own toilet, kicthen, living room, dining area and bedrooms. Two and two kids are sharing bedrooms. In August 2015 we finished he first house, and short time after we finalized it with furnitures, solar panels and solar geyser. In October 2017 we started building the second house - which was finalied in April 2018. But the official opening and moving in to the second house couldn’t happen before February 2019, because we had to wait for all papers to be approved by the governemnt.

SUSTAINABILITY

In all the work we do with all our projects we aim to be as selfsustainable and independent as possible. In collaboration with Engineers Without Borders we make sure everything is as sustainable as possible. The orphanage is working to create more income generating projects, which will make them not depending on donations in the future.

HOPE-VEGETABLE GARDEN

Our biggest goal towards sustainability is our vegetable garden. It contains two parts. One is for the orphanage to use and eat. They might also sell whatever they have leftover to be able to buy new seeds for next planting.

The other part is the childrens. They have the responsibility to look after the vegetables, harvest them and sell them. Then they need to buy new seeds and replant them. The profit they earn from this is being placed on their own account which they will get the day they’re moving out of the orphanage after turning 18 years old.

WATER

Water is hard to find in general on the african continent, and Mkoba is unfortunately the same. Because the local authority water is being closed down from time to time, they can go days without water. There might be some hours a week with water coming out. To make sure the orphanage have the much needed water we drilled a borehole. Unfortunately the borehole is half dry, so it can only be used in emergencies. The boys needed more water for the vegetable garden, so they started digging their own waterhole. After securing it it turned out really good.

RENEWABLE ENERGY

One of the biggest challenges with the old orphanage was the lack of electricity, because of all the powercuts. Often you won’t have electricity five out of seven days a week. This creates a lot of challenges when cooking for this many children. Thanks to Engineers Without Borders Norway we are running the orphanage completely on solar power. This is not only more reliable, but also more environmental friendly and cheaper to maintain.

PLAYGROUND

Since the government said that the children could not live at the orphanage without a playground, we made a fun activity out of making one. Thanks to some old tires, paint and creativity it turned out to become a quite unique playground.

FIREPIT

Because we want the kids to be able to gather from both houses, we made a firepit. Then they can sit around the fire and have supper.

FOOTBALL

Behind the orphanage we made a football court which can be used by the orphanage and the local community. We have engaged a local trainer who’s working hard to reach our big goal of one day be playing at Norway Cup.