Thank you for your support

Thank you so much for the support for this project and its needs. At the moment we have the following projects running at the Church: Leather work. We were able to obtain some materials and an artisan staying in the building is training others to make craft which can be sold. The catering and food services training continues- and we are expecting another 12 people to graduate at the end of the course. The adults registered with the computer literacy driving licence course wrote their tests last month and 100% of learners passed. This is an absolute first for any of our training programmes. We continue to run ABET classes; English as a second language; conversational French, English and Zulu and provide some coaching for adults who want to complete their school learning. The Joint Board Theology has commenced lectures in the evening. Space and noise and equipment all remain huge challenges- but the learning goes on. We are enormously grateful for all the assistance we receive.

When schooling stops...........

The schools in Zimbabwe have effectively not worked for close to two years. This year there is an almost total collapse of schooling - in the country that for years had one of the best education systems in Africa. In South Africa we understand the impact of ending young people's opportunity to learn. In the 1980s schools were severely disrupted by the apartheid regime and hundreds of thousands of children and young people were denied a chance to access schools. Twenty years we continue to pay the price- with a school system that struggles to provide quality education- a skills deficit and a generation of people who have never had the opportunity to work. The insensitivity of many South Africans to the experience of Zimbabwe is frankly staggering. Over the past month we have received large numbers of young people- adolescents and people in their early twenties- coming to the Church for assistance. Providing ongoing opportunities for them to keep learning- either in the Albert Street School- or through the multiple skills training and ABET programmes run at the Church is a critical objective for us.