AHFoZ always remembered Rose of Charity Children’s Home

Leonard Ncube
THE Association of Health Funders of Zimbabwe (AHFoZ) has over the years extended a helping hand to Rose of Charity Children’s Home in Victoria Falls as part of the organisation’s corporate social responsibility.

The donation to Rose of Charity has become synonymous to AHFoZ’s annual conferences every year.

The donations have been around various kinds of groceries to cushion the Victoria Falls-based home to be able to take care of orphans and vulnerable children under its care.

At its recent annual conference in Victoria Falls, as usual, AHFoZ donated groceries to Rose of Charity.

These included basics such as mealie-meal, cooking oil, cleaning detergents, toiletries and others.

Mrs Simangele Khumalo-Moyo who is founder of Rose of Charity said the home is indebted to the gesture by the association.

Mrs Khumalo-Moyo said this year’s donation came when the home’s stocks were empty.

“We were empty since coronavirus affected our usual sources of donations. Things have not been well, we usually relied on tourists who would come and leave us with something. We are grateful and humbled by the continued support from AHFoZ. We are grateful that they didn’t forget us especially during these trying times when things are not easy,” she said.

Rose of Charity has 23 orphaned and vulnerable children (OVC) housed at the Chinotimba-based home in Victoria Falls.

Their ages range between two to 17 years.

The children add up to 79 including those that come for feeding and go back to their various homes in the city on a daily basis.

The home has also built premises in Sizinda about 15km outside Victoria Falls where some projects such as gardening, horticulture and livestock keeping among others like sport and social games take place for the benefit of the OVC.

At the Chinotimba premises, Rose of Charity has started a pre-school for its children and community.
OVC learn free of charge while those from the community pay US$30 per school term, making it arguably the cheapest kindergarten institution in the city.

“Everything we get we share with the vulnerable in the community. We want to accommodate the less privileged and that is why even our ECD learners just pay for bills only,” said Mrs Khumalo-Moyo.

The home also runs a girl empowerment club in Monde and Sizinda areas and its impact has been noted in schools where girls who are members of the club perform better than others academically and in extracurricular activities now included in the competence-based learning curriculum.

The club has now started encompassing boys in its programmes so they are also not left behind.