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Writes Marlvin Ngiza
The Chinese Embassy, in partnership with the Teen Rescue Mission on Friday donated stationery, uniforms, and school fees to 100 school children who were selected from the families that were severely impacted by the Mbare inferno that razed down the Mbare complex on 8 October 2024.
The packages per family included school fees for one child for one term, bond paper, 20 (72 pages) exercise books, 2-quire counter books, khaki, and plastic covers for 60 exercise books, rulers, pencils sellotape, and pens.
The handover ceremony took place at Mbare Stoddart Hall and was also attended by the Ministry of Youth Empowerment, Development and Vocational Training, and the Zimbabwe Youth Council among others.
Speaking during the handover ceremony, the Chinese Ambassador to Zimbabwe, His Excellency Zhou Ding expressed China’s commitment to working with local partners to uplift the educational standards of young people, especially those who were affected by the disaster.
“I honour Mbare residents for their hardworking culture. I understand that you are coming from a painful situation. I want to also appreciate different parties who are helping the victims of the recently happened inferno.
“As the Chinese Embassy, we are here to stand with you in this difficult situation. Our Embassy chose to help the most affected members of the Mbare community through school fees and stationery so that children will be able to continue with their education without trauma or disturbance; Our children are our future.
“China stands with Zimbabwe in many instances. We have good relations and some of the developments we helped Zimbabwe with include the establishment of power stations, building stadiums and airports, drilling boreholes and building schools so that the nation develops. We desire to uplift the livelihoods of people in Zimbabwe. We are pleased that our efforts are bringing change and our interventions will bring a positive change to your lives. We also hope that Mbare will recover soon. We stand together to support you and we are not going to end here but will make sure that we look for all areas where we can intervene believing that by working with other partners, we will ensure an educated young generation for a developed nation without leaving anyone or any place behind,” he said.
Speaking upon receiving the donations, parents who benefited expressed their gratitude to the gesture saying that it was timely and was going to help their children access education without a challenge, especially in January next year.
One of the beneficiaries, Mr Manyika said “I am grateful for the intervention. The inferno left us with nothing. We could not recover even a single thing when the inferno so the relief from the Chinese Embassy and Teen Rescue Mission means a lot to us as parents and to our children as well.
The gesture was also commended by the Zimbabwe Youth Council Legal and Compliance Office,r Juliana Kariri who said “If you have empowered young people, you have empowered a nation. I want to thank TRM, the government of Zimbabwe and the Chinese Embassy for various youth-tailored initiatives that are meant to empower them and equip them with knowledge. Today, we are witnessing the donations – a good gesture which will help our young people to go to school after a heartbreaking disaster that recently happened. This only means that our young people are not left out in our country,” she said.
Meanwhile, Teen Rescue Mission Director, Abraham Matuka, vowed their organisation’s commitment to assist young people, empower them and to also fight against social ills such as drug abuse and teen pregnancy that erode young people’s future.
“Our relations with China have been strong since we launched youth programmes. As TRM, we managed to introduce several life-changing skills and from 2021, we served more than 1000 youth. Currently, through our organisation, the youth are benefiting from economic empowerment programmes such as hotel and catering, horticultural studies and poultry rearing among others,” he said.
The selected beneficiaries were mainly families headed by single mothers.
When the inferno broke out, President Emmerson Mnangagwa, on the 15th of October 2024, declared the Mbare inferno a state of disaster.
