Community unites in primary school project

Community members from Vaka and Masunda villages under Chief Masunda in Zvishavane have gathered on a cold winter morning to offer different skills for the purposes of constructing a primary school for their children.

They want to cut the distance travelled by their children to the nearest school.

As some men offload sand from scotch carts, scores of women act as a conveyor belt, passing bricks to each other, down the line to the construction site.

Builders give out instructions while other men mix cement as they work on laying the foundation for the first classroom block.

The same villagers are the ones who dug the foundation.

After seeing the plight of the children who are walking 20km to and from the nearest school, the villagers came up with the idea of constructing a primary school and pulled resources together for this worthy cause.

Together with friends, neighbours, husbands, and wives, Vaka and Masunda villagers have been working long days moulding bricks, and bringing sand from the rivers to the site so that construction of the school where their children will attend starts in earnest.

Villagers said the school will be called Muvungani Primary School and is set to benefit hundreds of pupils in the area.

Already, the villagers have erected signage giving directions to the school site as they show intention and goodwill for the success of the project.

The school will be less than 2km from Chief Masunda’s homestead and within reach of other villages in the area.

Mrs Tinei Siziba, with her cracked and calloused hands, is one of the women who have formed a beeline to move bricks to the construction site.

The mother of four who has two children in Grades 2 and 6 said they could not sit back and watch their children walk long distances to and from school.

“Our idea is to build a primary school and we’re starting with a classroom block. We have villagers from Vaka and Masunda villages here who want to make a difference for our children. Even the cold weather experienced in the past two days is not deterring the villagers from coming to the site. We’ll work until the school is ready for a teacher to teach,” said Mrs Siziba.

She said the community members have embarked on the primary school construction project, embracing the Second Republic’s philosophy, “Nyika inovakwa nevene vayo/Ilizwe lakhiwa ngabaninilo“.

“We have villagers who have started pooling resources together to construct a primary school in this area and bring education closer to our community,” said Mrs Siziba.

Mr Morgan Zhou, another parent, said their children would walk long distances to school even during the rainy season when they are forced to cross flooded rivers to get to their destination, which he said affected their performance.

“Some of the children were walking through the jungle which is not safe and so we decided to construct a school. We’re starting with a single classroom block. We pulled resources together as a community and started by moulding bricks, bringing sand to the site, and digging the foundation among other things,” he said.

Ward 13 Councillor Cde Morgan Mpasi said it is every Zimbabwean child’s dream to access basic education that lays the foundation for a brighter future.

He noted that it is against this background that the community members have teamed up to construct Muvungani Primary School to reduce the distance travelled by their children to access education.

“President Mnangagwa’s philosophy, ‘Nyika inovakwa nevene vayo/Ilizwe lakhiwa ngabanikazi balo“, has been a huge inspiration to us and that is how we thought of this idea to bring education to our doorstep. We’re playing a role in the socio-economic development of our community,” said Clr Mpasi.

He said the children were travelling long distances to the nearest school which was affecting their performance as they arrived at the school late and exhausted.

“Our children are walking more than 10km to access school which is not good for them. This affects their education and development hence we thought of coming up with this initiative. Our President is always saying nyika inovakwa nevene vayo we are the owners of this place so it’s important for us to contribute meaningfully to the growth and development of our respective communities,” he said.

Chief Masunda indicated that the local leadership is convinced that the school would play a crucial role in uplifting learning standards in the area.

He added that they would continue to seek assistance from the Government and its development partners to ensure that key infrastructure deficiencies in the area are addressed.

“But we can’t afford to wait on the Government or aid for us to push development in our area. The onus is upon us to pull our resources together like what the villagers are doing for the construction of the primary school.”

Added the Chief, “I’m confident that this school will play a pivotal role in uplifting the standards of learning in the district, because learners will now be walking less than 5km to school per day and this helps a lot.”

Under the National Development Strategy (NDS 1) the Government rolled out a programme that will see 3 000 schools being built across the country.

The Second Republic has been on a drive to improve education provision across the country through the construction of schools and computerisation to bridge the digital gap between rural and urban learners. —@pchitumba1