collinbiotwo

My name is Collin Nyabadza and I am the Executive Director of The Collin Nyabadza Children’s Voice Charitable Trust, an organisation I set up and registered in Zimbabwe in December 2012. Our main aims are to help poor rural schools build proper classrooms, buy school furniture and sports equipment and drill boreholes.

 

I am a Zimbabwean/Canadian with a passion for helping others, especially children and women from marginalised communities. Before coming to Canada in April 2001, I taught a poor and dilapidated rural primary school from January, 1993 to April, 2001 when I left the country. The school was so rundown such that the majority of our qualified teachers were always coming and leaving within a short time owing to a lack of teaching and learning resources. This was adversely affecting our pupils academic progress.

Touched by this plight, coupled with my love for children and for helping others, I opted to stay put and instead help mobilise the community to develop the school’s infrastructure. I am glad that this decision to stay, will forever remain the most important and most rewarding I have ever made in my career. For, with funds that I sourced from the International Community and other good-willed people, we managed to tremendously improve our school’s facilities, a move that significantly improved our children’s performances.

The highlight of my career came in 1998 when I sourced a grant of $26,000 USD from the Irish Agency for International Development, to build a 1 x 2 classroom block and a teachers cottage, buy school furniture and water pump and drill a borehole at Tjewondo Primary School. This was when I realised I was cut out for a career in the field of community and humanitarian work.

During the same time period I also managed to source scholarships for over 300 needy children to enable them go to high school, for I strongly believe all children should be given full opportunities to enable them exploit their potentials to the fullest regardless of poverty. For my philosophy has always been, “It is neither a crime nor a sin for a child to be born into a poor family”. I am glad that some of these children are now doctors, teachers, nurses, pharmacists, engineers and mechanics. Yet, these are children who otherwise would not have made it in life owing to poverty.

Motivated by some of these success stories, in December 2012 I set up and registered a charitable trust in Zimbabwe, to enable us reach out to more needy children and schools. The charity is run by headmasters who live and work in those poor rural schools on a volunteer basis as our aim is to make use of every penny raised to benefit the children we serve. Also, the fact that our members live and work in those communities helps us in that they know exactly which schools need help.

In July/August of 2013, I travelled to Zimbabwe to monitor the work we are carrying out. I took with me hundreds of gently used soccer uniforms which were kindly donated to me by the Swift Current Soccer Association, Canada where I live and am a volunteer soccer coach to a boys under- 14 team.

We therefore donated the uniforms to several needy rural schools. It was touching to see some of the children cry from the gesture. This motivated us into wanting to do more for these children. As we were moving around the schools, we realised that there was a need for things like soccer balls and more soccer uniforms and equipment. To help address the problem, we quickly launched a, ‘DONATE A BALL CAMPAIGN’, where we are aiming at raising about 500 soccer balls. We will then donate about 10-15 soccer balls to each schools that we work with. We strongly feel this will have a bigger impact than donating just one or two soccer balls.

It is with this background in mind that we approach you for your support. Please feel free to visit my personal website at, www.collinnyabadza.com– it shows some of the work I have done over the past twenty years. At the moment, we are anxiously looking forward to hearing from you, for your help will certainly help unlock more funding opportunities from other well wishers.

Thank you in advance.

Yours Sincerely,

Signature

Collin Nyabadza
Executive Director