wfn.org | Africa University assists orphaned children

[NewsDesk <NewsDesk@UMCOM.UMC.ORG>]

June 22, 1999 New media contact: Linda Green*(615)742-5470*Nashville, Tenn.
10-31-71BP{342}

NOTE: A photograph is available with this story.

A UMNS News Feature
By Andra Stevens*

Evelyn Jim is 15 years old. She takes care of her two younger siblings, one
12 and the other 13, in the family home in Muchena Village near Penhalonga
in Zimbabwe, Africa.

Jim's home is one of a growing number of orphan/adolescent-headed households
in the country. Both of her parents are dead, but with the help of members
of the community and others, she has a chance to keep her family together.
She is learning about mushroom cultivation in a project designed to give
orphans in communities across Zimbabwe access to a better quality of life.

The project is headed by Margaret Tagwira, a biotechnology researcher and
chief laboratory technician at Africa University in Old Mutare, Zimbabwe.
Tagwira, supported by the Zero Emission Research Initiatives (ZERI)
Foundation and the United Nations Development Program (UNDP), is bringing
orphans, and the village women who help care for them, into the United
Methodist-related university to learn how to manage greenhouses and run
successful mushroom cultivation units.

"Targeting such a group with mushroom technology can help in many ways,"
Tagwira said. "In southern Africa, one of the main jobs of a woman is to
find relish to go with the sadza. The ability to find wild mushrooms or to
dry and preserve them for the lean times when the rains are not good has
always been very valuable in a woman. In a family where the parents are
gone, the girl child needs to have this knowledge." 

For two years, Tagwira has been developing mushroom spawn in the laboratory
and experimenting with the use of agricultural waste products as growing
media for mushrooms. She has worked on techniques to cultivate tropical
varieties in the laboratory in a bid to keep them from disappearing. Her
objectives are to give rural women and children a vital source of relish, to
help improve their diet and to provide them with an opportunity to generate
income for their other needs through mushroom cultivation. Now, Tagwira is
sharing her skills and knowledge with young people in rural communities.

"Research in a university is of no use unless it is going to benefit the
people who need it most," she said. "This project targets orphans, often the
poorest of the poor in our communities, because we believe that Africa
University must have a positive impact on the communities around it.

"It is important to teach disadvantaged children skills that help them to
provide for themselves if we are going to prevent much more of the suffering
that we already see," she added. 

Jim and two other orphaned teenagers, 14-year-old Lina Mazambuka and
18-year-old Joyce Akino, are the first to receive training along with two
women from Muchena Village who have been helping them. The three teen-agers
are part of a group of about 700 orphans living in an area between Tsvingwe
and Muchena Village. 

It's an area right in Africa University's backyard. Tsvingwe is a little
more than a mile over the hill from the University Farm, and Muchena is
about six miles away. The Mutare-based Family AIDS Caring Trust (FACT) has
identified up to 2,500 children living under stress in the area between
Tsvingwe and Muchena. 

The three teen-agers participating in the project's first training workshop
have lost all parents and are caring for their families in orphan-headed
households. Akino is caring for her two brothers, and she has a 5-month old
baby of her own. Mazambuka is staying in a home with her older brother, who
is also an adolescent. As heads of households, the children struggle to
provide food, clothing, health care, education, structure and security for
their families.

Their situation is not isolated. 

A July 1998 report by the National AIDS Coordination Program in Zimbabwe's
Ministry of Health and Child Welfare noted that "one serious consequence of
AIDS deaths to men and women in their prime child-bearing ages is an
increase in the number of orphans." The report projected that Zimbabwe will
have more than 500,000 orphans due to AIDS by the year 2000 and more than
900,000 by 2005. 

The report painted a dismal picture. "There will be a tremendous strain on
social systems to cope with such a large number of orphans and provide them
with care and support. At the family level, there will be increased burden
and stress for the extended family, which has the traditional responsibility
to care for orphans. Many grandparents will be left to care for young
children. Children and adolescents will head other families." 

At the community and national level, the report predicted an increased
burden on society to provide services for these children, including
orphanages, health care and school fees. Many orphans will never receive
adequate health care and schooling, and there will be a likely increase in
the number of street children in urban areas, it stated.

Concern about the growing number and quality of life in adolescent-headed
households has brought local leaders, community organizations and learning
institutions like Africa University together to design new support systems.

The Rural Mushroom Training project is a community-based initiative. St.
Augustine's, an Anglican Church-run high school in the area, donated land
for a garden. The orphans plant and tend that garden on weekends. Children
in orphan/adolescent-headed households share the produce (vegetables) from
the garden. The Family AIDS Caring Trust is building a vocational training
center for the children who fail in the normal academic program.

Tagwira works with the Kubatana mothers. In Shona, an indigenous language of
Zimbabwe, "kubatana" means "to unite." These are women with families in the
community. They've come together, with assistance and training from the
Family AIDS Caring Trust, to support their neighbors. They visit families
where the primary caregiver is sick, and they assist and help care for the
children. When the caregiver dies, they continue visiting and provide
parental influence and nurturing to the surviving children. 

In Muchena Village, Africa University and ZERI built a greenhouse for the
project on land donated by St. Augustine's. It's a simple structure
consisting of plastic walls, a cement floor and thatch roof. Every 10 weeks
for the next six months, the project will provide the orphans and Kubatana
mothers with already-prepared mushroom substrate bags from the university.
The Muchena Village greenhouse will receive about 200 substrate bags, and
each one will produce mushrooms for up to three months.

 Jim, Akino and Mazambuka, with supervision from Kubatana mothers such as
Stella Marowa and Babra Nyamwanza, will look after the greenhouse, harvest
the mushrooms and try to build a market for them in the community. Five
other orphans have already been identified for training in preparation of
the bags.

"It may be very small, but we are doing something," Tagwira said. "We are
transferring technology in a practical way, and we think it will really
benefit the community."

The organizers hope to sell the mushrooms to a nearby school and orphanage
at the St. Augustine's Anglican Mission and to people in the village. The
funds raised will go into an account, looked after by the Family AIDS Caring
Trust, and used to pay school fees for orphans in the Muchena Village area. 

Tagwira believes a market exists for the mushrooms, but she is concerned
about the potential for deforestation if the project succeeds. Preparing the
substrate bags requires a sterilization process that could use up a lot of
firewood, so she is working with the community to find alternate fuel
sources. Once the mushroom project is up and running smoothly, Tagwira plans
to set up similar units in other villages and areas that have large numbers
of orphans on their own.
# # #
*Stevens is director of the Africa University Office of Information.

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