The Yakanaka Foundation & Zimbabwe today

 

by Yakanaka Foundation

For some months now EcoChic has been supporting the work of the Yakanaka Foundation in Zimbabwe and we are about to send further funds to support the programme. Please support us further to support the Yakanaka Foundation, every penny goes directly: http://www.ecochiccollection.co.uk/product/yakanaka_farm_clinic_appeal/

Despite the political turmoil, tremendous social instability and suffering in Zimbabwe our friends at the Yakanaka Foundation  have been doing some  tremendous work in offering a feeding programme and farm clinic for between 120-170 children who are in desperate need of food and medical treatment. Lucy who runs the programme with her friends and family wrote to us and outlined the latest developments in the programme and gives a moving portrayal of life in Zimbabwe today.

Yakanaka Foundation: The Feeding Program.

Updated 27th of Feb 09 - This started in Dec 08 - and has been running for 3 months now. The most children we have had on any one day are 170 especially over the December Christmas holidays. - however this fluctuates as some children are returned to their rural homes to look after live stock and plant maize by their parents. This is of concern to us as we cannot monitor if they are getting properly fed. However we continue with our program and the numbers have seemed to settle in a range between 140 - 120. We have increased the portions the children are getting as after a month of feeding their weights had not changed much.
This is due to a number of reasons. Now that these particular children are being fed this porridge by the Chingoma Feeding Program and Yakanaka, their families don’t feed them at home as they give their portion to somebody else who is very hungry in the extended family. Trying to monitor this and correct it, is a big challenge.
Other reasons is that some of the children are HIV positive and this had not been picked up yet, but we have subsequently had Webster from Camsasa Clinic come and re-do the testing of all the children and now those found positive are being treated. Plus a number of children were suffering from worms & bilharzias and they have been treated for this.

So we are happy to report that the overall the children are gaining weight - not as much as we would want but we have been advised by dieticians that it takes time, we were very disheartened by this in the beginning but we are now into our fourth month of feeding and we are slowly starting to see the benefits.
Updated 26th April 09 - With schools having re-opened this year in March, we did see a decline in our number of children coming to the centre for this important one meal a day feeding supplement. However we quickly rectified this by changing the time of this meal to make sure that the children did not have to choose between food and education. We now prepare the meal for after the school day ends. Since our last update we have had some positive weight gain in the children who are HIV positive, now receiving treatment, and weight gain in the children who have been treated for worms and bilharzia.

One of our most costly continued requirements (except the actual porridge) is the constant supply of chewable vitamins for the children. We really do notice an overall improvement in their health with these given daily. We hand out vitamins to each child and for those that we have on our ‘special list’ - we prepare a specific meal for them. Our Special List are those that are of extra concern to us, either because they have been ill, are HIV positive, are losing too much weight etc. We monitor these children very closely and feed them with things like cerelac, pronutro, eggs, spinach and for those who are very poorly we feed them with Ensure - a fortified powdered drink. The price of this ranges from £5-£12 depending if we have managed to drive and purchase ourselves in South Africa or if we are forced to buy it in Harare where current prices are exorbitant.
The Farm Clinic.

Updated 27th of Feb 09 - The Farm Clinic is a very small day to day aliments type of clinic which we run here on the farm. We have purchased a supply of medicines from a wholesaler in Johannesburg, SA to the value of £720.00 in December and the stocks are still quite good. It is medicines like diarrheal solution, antiseptic creams, plasters & bandages, asthma treatment, STD treatments, cough syrup, flu medicines, Rehydration formulas, vitamins (which we have all the children in the feeding program on every day!) - cures for Malaria, Bilharzias, Cholera, etc

We have always had to drive our more ill patients to a town over 40km’s from here - to a Gvt. clinic which sadly has often had no medicines and no doctors but recently the Gvt has set up a small Clinic run by a wonderful man who is passionate and dedicated to his job. This is called Camsasa Clinic - He is a male nurse and probably deals with more things than most Doctors will see in a life time!

Rabies:

Two weeks ago, the horrible reality of the existence of no medical support in this country was bought home, when a rabid dog bit 4 people here on the farm (2 adults, 2 children) and we rushed off to find rabies vaccine at the local hospitals and clinics - nothing at all. Phee eventually located some in a pharmacy in Harare, and the total cost came to US$900 - nearly 2.5 months’ worth of porridge for the feeding scheme! But there was nothing we could do but buy the medicines - it is a lot of money but we had no choice. Rabies is an awful disease and one of the most horrific ways to die. A nurse at the hospital told us about a young woman from around here who was bitten about 3 months ago. The local rural hospital had no serum, but apparently she tried to beg for some from a local doctor who had it in stock. But she couldn’t afford the exorbitant charges, so went home untreated. On the 15th day after being bitten, she developed the symptoms of rabies, and she and her suckling baby died horrific deaths. If only she had known to come to us perhaps we could have helped. But can we help everyone - no, this is a very cruel lesson we are learning but we keep going with the motto “one person at a time.”
Updated 26th of Apr 09 - We continue with our day to day running of this clinic. Constantly restocking medicines that are used in abundance, like children’s diarreah medicine, malaria treatment etc.
Camsasa Clinic

This is +/- 10 km’s from Chingoma farm. It is in one of the farm houses which was seized in the Land re-distribution program. The setting up of this clinic by the Gvt is a great relief to us as dealing with very sick patients and delivering babies for us on our farm was a worry as we are not trained. However to use the word ‘set up’ is a bit over doing it - they have virtually nothing there. Webster Gunja, who runs the place, is an absolute gem. This means we can send our patients on to him when they have anything serious that we can’t handle. And also pass on any cholera cases that might turn up. (along with the required medicines) Well over 3000 people have now died in Zimbabwe. The most Webster has had as far as ‘help’ in the last few months is a ‘strong door’ built for his medicine room and 10 extra blankets from an NGO. This brings his total stock of blankets in the Clinic to 14. And he has exactly 2 beds in 3 wards. When three of his patients gave birth within hours of each other, 2 babies were delivered on the floor, and he had to use empty plastic bags on his hands, as there were no rubber gloves in stock. We have rectified this and given him boxes of gloves and will make sure he does not run out. He hasn’t received a salary since August last year. Despite all his problems, he works hard and does a wonderful and compassionate job. We are now trying to help him supply a few beds, blankets, etc for his clinic through the Yakanaka Foundation. We have given him funds for his efforts in place of a salary - most of his colleagues in Zimbabwe are on strike as their pay is worth less than a loaf of bread. But Webster does not stop - he keeps working although he has not been paid. We donate fruit, blankets, other food stuffs, maize meal, and books - whatever we can.
Updated 26th of Apr 09.
The situation has improved with the GNU paying their medical staff for the month of March and so there is some hope in the public service sectors. However the Gvt has warned that they may not be able to repeat this for April, we wait and watch to see the outcome. However it is a positive step and we are all very hopeful. Camsasa clinic also received some much needed drugs from the Ministry of Health. If this continues we are hoping to finally use some funds to start purchasing beds, blankets etc. However, a worrying fact is that the area was classified as a non-malaria area, previous patients being treated had been in a malaria area in recent days. Now Webster has reported that he has treated over 88 patients for malaria since the beginning of the year. The majority of these people are from the immediate surrounding areas and have not travelled anywhere. Thus malaria & the mosquito are back and this is more than likely due to a breakdown of prevention spraying by local farmers and Gvt organisations. It is a great pity as Malaria is one of Africa’s worst killers. We continue to assist where we can.
Funds from the Yakanaka donors are currently trying to help Webster secure a small submersible pump as the Clinic has had no running water for over 2 weeks now. Webster’s family walk many kilometres to collect water from other sources.
Chimbumu School.

Updated 27th of Feb 09 - We have donated boxes of chalk, exercise books, colour pens, neons, but the schools are still semi closed as the Gvt and them are in negotiations on salaries. The Yakanaka Foundation donated £ 150 of maize meal to the teachers, this is 320 kg’s of food. This was to help the teachers as they are starving.. On their previous salaries they spent more time trying to make extra money on the side, than teaching. The government schools are still closed. Our children have essentially lost a year of their education so far. But we hold out in hope that with this new Gvt of National Unity - the basic services will resume - and teachers across the country will be paid a wage they can at the very least be able to eat for the month. The Gvt of Nat Uni (GNU) is negotiating a rescue package to help kick start our collapsed economy. We wait in hope that a ‘plan’ will be made very shortly to try and return the teachers back to the schools so the pupils can start learning again. Once this has been resolved, we hope to continue to support the children who desperately need our help. We are hoping a resolution to the negotiations etc will be settled in the next 2 weeks. Since we donated the school teachers from Chimbumu School some food to survive on, we have had appeals from over 5 schools, some quite a distance from here for food. We have even had teachers arrive at the farm reduced to the humiliation of begging for food which we just don’t have.

*Government presented a US$458 mln “budget” for the education sector to the donor community yesterday
(Herald, Tuesday February 24, Pg 1). Education, Sport, Arts and Culture, Minister David Coltart said at a press
conference that followed meetings with the Unicef and UN agencies that the “budget” will cover 6 months. The
Progressive Teachers’ Union of Zimbabwe and the Zimbabwe Teachers Association also agreed with government
for their members to return to work by March 2. March salaries would be decided upon “through negotiations”. The
intention, in “the long run”, is to “match their salaries with those paid to teachers in the region”, the report said.

We will see what happens in the next few weeks and update you but we are hoping to get back to supporting the 1300 junior school pupils who are desperate for an education as soon as possible. This would be in the form of all our previous plans to assist the pupils with paper, books, pens, pencils, text books, etc.

Updated 27th of Apr 09 - It is great to report that the GNU & Ministry of Education managed to pay the teachers for the month of March (USD100 each) and so they returned to work. As with the Public Health Sector we wait to see if this will be repeated for the month of April. It was wonderful to go to the school and see the children back in the classrooms. We are desperate for more funds to be able to provide exercise books, chalk, text books, anything and everything a child can use at school.

Brendan & Tapera - Burn victims.

I have gone into great detail about the details of Tapera and his severely burnt feet, sadly we are trying to raise funds for Brendan, another little boy in our area who has fallen in a fire pit and he too was very badly burnt.

If you require any further details on either of these little boys’ cases - please let me know and I will fwd the very detailed reports.

In conclusion..we have recently had a number of visitors to the foundation projects, Kate Watkins from Le Beado Beads in UK, one of our donors, Jeff Takawira and Laputa from International Fair Trade Zimbabwe. A very dedicated girl called Marietta Neumann, who is a volunteer for Children of Fire Organisation in Johannesburg. Children of Fire have very kindly taken in Tapera who is undergoing skin grafts to help him recover from severe burns of his legs. Yakanaka Foundation assisted in getting him to Johannesburg to receive this treatment.

Funds raised in the future would be used for:

Continuing to purchase the Fortified Porridge for the Feeding Program,
Assist Camsasa Clinic with the very basics. Help to support Webster.
Continue to support & supply the Farm clinic with medicines.
Try and help Brendan & Tapera specifically. Burns victims.
Continued support to the children at Chimbumu School.

Please support us in supporting the Yakanaka Foundation: http://www.ecochiccollection.co.uk/product/yakanaka_farm_clinic_appeal/

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