A charity organisation from Seke, and the Zimbabwe Scholarship Institute (ZIS) are appealing to the public, government and other civic organisations to assist 56 orphans and vulnerable children who dropped from school for financial reasons.
By Phyllis Mbanje
The children have all dropped out of school due to lack of fees and other basic needs and were currently being housed at Seke South Community Welfare Centre under the ZIS reinstatement programme.
“The children were referred to the centre by the department of social services in the district, while others were identified among orphans and vulnerable children by the organisation’s outreach teams,” ZIS director Shadreck Mhlanga said.
Some of the children were orphans while others have one or both parents surviving but were HIV positive and bed ridden.
Their plight was just a tip of an iceberg as more children were likely to drop out of school as a result of the prevailing harsh economic environment. According to an assessment carried out by ZIS in Seke, St Mary’s and Zengeza, 70% of the children stay with grandparents who are unable to raise school fees.
Around 29% were from families run by single mothers whose husbands/partners have either passed away or abandoned the families and gone to South Africa. And then 1% belongs to a group of children whose parents were alive but have dropped out of school because their parents owe the school huge sums of money in school fees arrears.
