CNCVCT Annual Report 2014
Collin Nyabadza Children’s Voice Charitable Trust
Annual Report 2014
Preamble
The Collin Nyabadza Children’s Voice Charitable Trust (CNCVCT) is a relatively new charitable trust that was established in 2012. The organisation was born out of realization that children’s rights are being violated and that many children of school going age were not attending school, and those who were doing so, were receiving education under very difficult circumstances. As an organisation the CNCVCT decided to hold the bull by its horns and make a deliberate effort to address some of the issues affecting children in their respective schools and try to bring back those that are not in school. In a nutshell the trust is centered on Zimbabwean children of school going age who are either not in school for various reasons or are learning under very unpleasant environment in class. The trust endeavours to provide vulnerable children in Zimbabwean schools with among other things, decent sitting and writing places, decent classrooms, books, proper school uniforms, and sanitary pads for the girl child, stationery, sports equipment, computers, boreholes and other things.
The Collin Nyabadza Children’s Voice Charitable Trust strongly believes and supports the United Nations Charter on human rights that stipulates that every child has a right to an education. As an organisation we have cemented this UN Charter doctrine by coming up with our motto, “No child shall be put down by poverty”. As a trust we want to walk the talk. The trust also wishes to address conditions in which rural based school teachers operate under. There is high rate of staff turnover in the majority of Zimbabwe’s rural schools and high rural- urban transfers, due to the appalling conditions rural teachers are subjected to. Teachers need decent housing and better facilities like water and electricity. In some cases teachers walk long distances to fetch water and firewood. This certainly demotivates them and are often forced to leave their schools for city ones.
Our Board
1. Mr. Collin Nyabadza – Executive Director
3. Mr. Exson Ngalaphi Nyathi – Board Advisor
4. Mr. Siqhubumthetho Dube – Board Chairperson
5. Mr. Sipho Ncube – Board Vice – Chairperson
6. Mr. Cosmas Zulu – Sports Development Officer
7. Mr. Ronald Ncube – Projects Manager
8. Mr. Malaki Ndlovu – Donor Relations & Fundraising Coordinator
9. Mr. Bongani Ncube – Accountant
10. Ms. Sibonokuhle Ndlovu – Public Relations/Marketing Officer & Assistant Fundraising Coordinator
11. Ms. Nokuthula Ncube – Monitoring & Evaluation and Gender Issues Officer
12. Ms. Sherinah Sibanda – Field Reporter
Our Vision
Ladies and gentlemen our vision is: “To be an organisation renowned for ensuring that aid reaches the needy children in Zimbabwe and that children of school going age are given opportunities to develop their potentials to the fullest”.
Our Mission
The Collin Nyabadza Children’s Voice Charitable Trust strives to ensure that children of school going age in Zimbabwe get an opportunity to attend school in a conducive and safe environment, and also to ensure that these children get to enjoy their childhood free from abuse and neglect.
Our Values
The CNCVCT was founded upon the following values: accountability, honesty, transparency, ethics, fairness, equality, integrity and placing the interests of all children first in our dealings. The trust came up with only eight simple values that can easily be internalised. As an organisation we endeavor to walk these values and indeed place the interests of children first in all that they do.
Our Motto
No child shall be put down by poverty.
Strategies to address stakeholders’ needs
The CNCVCT was established mainly to address the plight of disadvantaged children in rural Zimbabwe who are either denied access to education or are learning under very difficult and trying environment. As an organisation the CNCVCT aims at directing and re-directing all its efforts towards the improvement of teaching and learning environment in rural schools in the six districts that we have identified which are, Binga, Bubi, Matobo, Mguza, Mutasa and Tsholotsho. The majority of the schools in all the six districts have a number of things in common such as poor and inadequate staff accommodation, sub-standard infrastructure, lack of classroom furniture, water, stationery, sports equipment and even long distances to school travelled by the learners. Some of the schools are located far away from the nearest bus stop, thereby making it very difficult for teachers to reach them on foot.
The CNCVCT wishes to go an extra mile and purchase school uniforms and sanitary pads for the children. As an organisation, it has come to our attention that often children do not go to school simply because they do not have a school uniform, or girls are uncomfortable because they do not have sanitary pads. Assisting children to have school uniforms would go a long way towards helping improve on their self-esteem and the general school attendance and significant reduction of school dropouts.
To achieve the afore mentioned, the CNCVCT intends to make use of its board members who are drawn from the six districts to identify needy schools and children of school going age. The board members are working with and through school authorities, the ministry of education, arts and culture, parents and the donor community to try and remove some barriers in accessing education bedeviling the rural schools in Zimbabwe.
Set Targets
The CNCVCT recently crafted a 5 year strategic plan which has very clear outcomes and their input in the areas identified as disadvantaged communities.
Objectives
1. Provision of classrooms, toilets, teachers’ cottages and school fees for the under privileged children.
2. Classroom furniture
3. Sports equipment
4. Computers
5. Boreholes
6. Computers
7. Sanitary pads
8. Books
Targets
one package for each school in the six districts
furnish the classrooms
to equip our target schools with sports equipment
to equip our target schools with computers
Achievements
Since the inception of the CNCVCT, the organisation has managed to:
Obtain a post office box to ensure safe delivery of our mail
Have a website for the organisation to enable us reach out to more sponsors by showing them the work we are carrying out. Our web address is: HYPERLINK “http://childrensvoicezimbabwe.org//” www.childrensvoicezimbabwe.org (special mention to Swift Current and Canada resident Staci Schaitel who designed and helps maintaining and updating it.
Secured CAD500 from the Catholic Social Justice Committee in Swift Current, Canada. This was used to open our bank account with Barclays Bank.
Donated soccer kits to a number of schools, e.g. Whitewater Secondary School in Matobo District. (these kits were kindly donated to us by the Swift Current Soccer Association, Canada).
Donated soccer balls on the 22nd of October, 2014 to Tjewondo, Lingwe and Marinoha Primary Schools in Matobo District. Each school got five balls.
We received a grant of AUD500 from an amazing 11 year old Australian boy, Mac Millar, who runs his own charity, Play It Forward, which sends soccer balls to children in many poor countries around the world. The funds were sent via the Rotary Club of Bulawayo South and were used to purchase the soccer balls.
Our organisation in October this year received a donation of 2 007 books from a UK based charity, Books2Africa. However we had to provide our shipping costs of £1 054.
We approached yet another UK based charity, the Strathspey for help. They agreed to help us and have since sent the full amount of £1 054 direct to Books2Africa and the books have already been shipped to us.
Our organisation received 60 new soccer balls from a USA organisation, Give A Kick. Thirty of the balls are already in the country waiting to be handed over to our schools.
We received a suitcase of soccer jerseys from the Rick & Sue Foundation in Canada. The jerseys are already in Harare and are awaiting delivery to us.
One Australian based organisation Footy’s, donated 17 soccer balls, 13 bibs/pinnies and two ball pumps. These are still in Australia, as we search for the most economic ways of bringing them over to us.
In September this year we received a donation of classroom furniture from the Catholic School Division in Swift Current and Canada, after two of their schools closed down to make way for a new one. But we are still having challenges of how to ship it down to us. Approximately CAD10 000 is required to ship the items which also include stuff such as overhead projectors and sports equipment. Having the items shipped would be a worthwhile investment. Well- wishers have started donating money to help us ship the equipment. So far we have raised CAD1 650, with more people pledging to donate, which is quite encouraging.
In December this year we received a grant of CAD6 000 from a Canadian based organisation Global Education Fund (GEF) to enable us purchase classroom furniture for Majiji Primary School in Bubi District.
Obstacles and opportunities
The future of the Collin Nyabadza Children’s Voice Charitable Trust is very bright. More partners are falling in love with our vision and mission and are willing to partner with us in our efforts to assist our disadvantaged rural children get better educational resources. A number of donors have pledged to assist our organisation in cash and or kind towards helping us achieve our vision.
Like any other organisation, the CNCVCT has its fair share of challenges. Top amongst the list of challenges is the raising of funds to ship donated goods from overseas. Being an organisation still in its infancy stages, we are facing the challenge of an office space in Bulawayo, Zimbabwe’s second largest city. The rental costs are inhibitive, but it is absolutely necessary that the organisation have its own office space from which to operate from. We are currently in search of just one big room and these range between USD250 – USD500. At the moment we have to make do with sharing with another organisation. The challenge is that since the majority of our board members are based in some of those rural communities we work with; they are often in town weekends and would therefore wish to use Sundays to have meetings in the boardroom. We would therefore appreciate anyone willing to sponsor an office for us.
Organisational Structure
The CNCVCT has a very simple structure where there is an executive director and nine Trust board members who are drawn from the six districts in which we work with. The board members are specialized in different areas. Consequently, the organisation has a pool of skills at its disposal to take it to a greater height. The board members run the Trust on a part – time volunteer basis and are responsible for identifying the needs of the schools in their respective districts they manage. This has assisted the organisation in reducing labour costs resulting in almost every penny we raise being used to help the children we help. However, there is need to consider employing at least one or two full time employees as the work load is becoming increasingly too much to bear for the volunteer board members.
Conclusion
In conclusion, ladies and gentlemen, the future of the Collin Nyabadza Children’s Voice Charitable Trust is very bright as more and more partners are falling in love with our vision and mission. It is envisaged that this organisation will be a very big one in the shortest possible time. One of our biggest strengths is the fact that the organisation is composed of natural leaders. Some of them are actually running some of those poor rural schools, and thus they have first-hand experience of the challenges of running a school without facilities. This is motivation enough for them to want to do a very good job with us. Also, a number of them, as school heads have several years’ experience carrying out donor funded projects. This is therefore experience which is invaluable to our organisation. Having our members live and work in the communities that we serve certainly puts us head and shoulders above a number of other organisations, as this gives us the impetus to identify even the most difficult to access schools which in the past have often neglected making us live up to our motto, “No child shall be put down by poverty”.
It is with this background in mind that we are convinced that these teething problems at our infancy stages would soon be a thing of the past. Let us therefore continue working very hard as a team to improve the teaching and learning conditions in Zimbabwe’s rural schools.
Thank You
Compiled By
Mr. S. Dube
Board Chairperson
Collin Nyabadza Children’s Voice Charitable Trust (CNCVCT)
