FOSTER-parenting is a rare phenomenon in Zimbabwe due to the fact that naturally Africans adopted the extended family system where children of relatives were considered as everyone’s responsibility.
REPORT BY VENERANDA LANGA
Although many unwanted children end up at children’s homes, few black Zimbabweans have ever considered foster-parenting even when they did not have the fruit of their womb.
This is due to the arduous task of bringing up children, which involves time and expenses in the form of food, clothing, educational and health expenses and other costs at a period when the economic downturn is biting almost every family.
While most foster homes or orphanages in Zimbabwe rely on philanthropic assistance by well wishers, one such foster family is headed by Apostolic Church of Pentecost pastor Henry Zihove and his wife Mharidzo of Rugare in Harare. The family started adopting orphaned children in 2003.
Rugare is one of Harare’s poorest suburbs in Harare and the family has decided to embark on farming projects to sustain the huge family comprising 18 adopted children.
Almost all their 18 adopted children came from the Social Welfare department which found out that they were competent enough to become foster parents. The children that are in their care are from as young as seven months to teenages.
“We started setting up foster homes in 2003 when we took in five children who were given to us by the Department of Social Welfare,” Zihove said.
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“As a couple we have four biological children, but we discussed the issue of foster-parenting and decided that we could take in more orphaned children and become their foster parents.”
With the support of his church, Zihove said he managed to purchase two houses — one at Madzimahwe Street which houses six children and another in Hwata Street which houses 12 children. The other third house at Mpezeni Street is incomplete and still under construction.
The three homes, called Home of Peace, were run like every other home with the Zihove couple assuming the duties of mother and father to the children while women whom the children affectionately call “Aunties” run the foster homes on a daily basis taking care of the children.
“The youngest child is seven months old and the oldest is 18 years old. In 2006, we partnered with Action Aid, through Unicef who helped us with nutritional and educational donations for the children. They also provided psycho support and trained volunteers to equip the children with life skills.
We also embarked on getting birth certificates for the children. We have eight volunteers who do cooking, cleaning and gardening,” he said.
Gardening project sustains home
What is really fascinating about the two foster parents was that they do not entirely rely on donations to support the children.
They embarked on a massive gardening project which brings them income to buy food, clothes and pay school fees for some of the children, as well as pay rates, water and electricity bills for the two houses.
The farming project is not carried out on a large tract of land. It is a small piece of land — the size of a low density area housing stand — but serious farming is happening there.
A visit to the garden showed that if given more space for farming projects, these foster parents and their assistants in the church project can do wonders.
The place is green all over with almost mature cabbage and spinach on one side. On the other side is a greenhouse where more than a thousand tomato plants had grown and are producing very big high-quality tomatoes.
Zihove said the gardening project was currently their cash cow although donations from individuals, church organisations and non-governmental organisations also came in handy.
“The farming project is being run by three full-time employees and four volunteers. The full-time employees were in the past foster children and we groomed them in agriculture in order for them to run the project. We give them a salary of $150 per month. It is not enough, but it goes a long way in assisting them to make a living.
It is just a token of appreciation and assists them to gain life skills.
Initially, we got our farm equipment, seed and other implements from the Canadian mother body of our church, as well as from organisations such as Hands of Hope Zimbabwe. Our national branch of the church also raised $5 000 to enable us to build the greenhouse for horticulture projects,” he said.
He said he and his wife also contributed $3 000 to purchase drip irrigation equipment which they were using to water the plants. The church also put up a water tank and boreholes which were not only useful for agricultural purposes, but also served the whole community of Rugare.
“We use the money that we get from the project to feed the 18 foster children as well as other vulnerable children who come for another feeding scheme which we run daily. We have paid school fees, water and electricity bills for the foster homes using the money, and also bought clothing and other necessities for the children. The system is not run like an orphanage, we run it like any other family structure and our children are allowed to visit friends, and in turn those friends can visit them.”
He said monthly expenses for each foster home stood at $400 for groceries (food and other expenses including emergency medical expenses), $60 for monthly electricity bills and $30 for water bills.
His wife Mharidzo chipped in: “We are able to sustain ourselves due to the farming projects, but if the children were to have everything they needed, at least $700 would be required monthly for the house with 12 orphans and then the other house with six would probably need $400 monthly.”
Zihove said they employed aggressive marketing strategies to ensure that the vegetables and tomatoes were sold at competitive prices.
“We sell our produce to local supermarkets and hotels. We rarely sell them to individuals, and most of the vegetable requirements for the foster homes come from our agricultural project. If we had more farming land we would have extended the project and introduce carrots, onions and potatoes. We also want to embark on a massive poultry project of
5 000 chickens. We have already built the fowl runs for the chickens and feeding troughs. What is only needed is funding to buy the chicks. Once the project kicks off we want it to sustain itself.
“At the greenhouse we are working at getting another plastic shade to introduce English cucumbers so that we keep our market and gain confidence from our customers. We need to keep rotating the crops. The selling price of our tomatoes is between 85 cents and one dollar per kilogramme and we yield 400 to 500 kilogrammes of tomatoes twice per week. During winter the yield goes down to 300 kilogrammes,” Zihove said.
Farm manager Givemore Pasina said at the greenhouse they planted two types of tomatoes, Daniela and Star 9037.
“We planted 488 Daniela plants and 740 plants of Star 9037 tomatoes. We do not really have agricultural training, but over the years we have gained farming experience. We use different fertilisers and chemicals to prevent fungal diseases on our vegetables and tomatoes. The cabbages number 2 700 as well as several spinach plants,” Pasina said.
Rugare community benefits from project
Project administrator Leonard Gandiwa said the project was not only benefiting the foster children, but the Rugare community was benefitting as well.
“The Rugare community is benefiting a lot, especially in terms of life skills. Through the project and volunteer work they learn other survival skills.
“We have noticed that in the past Rugare used to experience high incidences of theft and drug abuse as youths had nothing to do. Those cases have gone down because people are learning from this project that there are several ways of earning an income. They are now motivated to work.
“There are several other people who are affected by HIV and Aids and they benefit from the vegetable project. They also prefer clean water from our boreholes. Those that experienced water cuts due to failure to pay bills have always benefitted because they fetch their water from our boreholes and water tanks,” Gandiwa said.
He said what was pleasing about community participation in the project was that they now felt they also owned it and whenever a borehole broke down, it was members of the community who did the repairs and replaced parts.
“People in Rugare often experience thefts of parts of their water taps, but we have never experienced such theft at our boreholes and water tank. It is a sign that some people are becoming responsible,” he said.
Home faces challenges
On how the foster homes were being run, one of the aunts Rwadziso Pasina running the Hwata street home said Zihove and his wife played the roles of father and mother while she did the cooking, laundry and other household chores.
“It is a three-bedroomed house and the boys have their own bedroom while the girls use the other two bedrooms. I share one of the bedrooms with some of the girls. All the kids consider themselves brothers and sisters. Older children also learn how to cook and do laundry whenever they are not busy with school work,” Pasina said.
She said the foster home was composed of three boys and nine girls. Four of the children were in high school while eight were in primary school.
The foster mother Mharidzo said even though they had learned to be self-sustainable they still faced challenges such as shortage of sanitary wear for girls.
“We need more clothes, bedding, uniforms and food items. We get nutritional and psycho social support from trained volunteers. Some individuals have assisted with sanitary wear and food items, while others, for example, businessman Shingi Munyeza, have brought donations and visited the houses together with their children. There is a lady who volunteered to make birthday cakes every month for all our children. It is important for people to visit and mingle with such children so that they raise their own children to grow up as adults who know that life is different for everyone,” Mharidzo said.
She said her biological children had no problems with sharing resources with other disadvantaged children and they lived together as one family. “We are looking for resources to complete the third foster home so that it can accommodate more children,” she said.
