peter
Robin Muchetu, Senior Reporter
A LOCAL Bulawayo woman Ms Sazini Tshuma has launched a philanthropic venture — MaGolide Foundation which is a feeding project aimed at assisting the less privileged members of the society starting in St Peter’s, a settlement outside Bulawayo.
The venture which is self-funded was birthed after realising the need in the community and the passion to see communities accessing at least one hot meal a day.
“I started this project a few months ago after realising that there was a gap in St Peter’s where I grew up. I started feeding the elderly, orphans, the mentally ill, and generally the less privileged members of the community.
The programme is just about me giving back to a community that I was born in and I use my own resources to feed the beneficiaries. I am looking forward to adding more as I get more resources,” said Ms Tshuma.
She also intends on empowering boys and girls from the same community so that they have hope in their future. She said there are high numbers of pregnancies of young girls, school dropouts and alcohol abuse and seeks to change this in her community.
“I look forward to offering them other skills like sewing and hairdressing. By profession I am a designer and these are the skills that I know for certain I can empower them with,” she said.
She said poverty in St Peter’s was a cause for concern that motivated her to begin assisting residents with food.
Ms Tshuma said after assisting the community at an individual level, she decided to group them and assist in providing food for the most vulnerable and she has not looked back. She now feeds them daily at lunchtime and allows them to carry the food home if they wish to indulge from their private places.
“Some collect their meals and choose to have them at night saying it is better to sleep on a full stomach than on an empty one. This is acceptable because they know where it hurts the most so they make decisions that are good for them.
I hope to one day feed them three meals a day, funds permitting, for now they get a meal from Monday to Saturday and Sunday they go to church,” said Ms Tshuma.
Ms Tshuma said she would want to add more beneficiaries saying the current 15 beneficiaries were too few looking at the burden of poverty in St Peter’s. She also hopes to secure medicines for those with various chronic illnesses as many cannot afford to secure the medicines from pharmacies.
She also said she would like to partner with donors and well-wishers to provide more food for the vulnerable saying it would change the face of the poverty stricken community. She encouraged other people born in St Peter’s to take the initiative to assist and develop the community that raised them. — @NyembeziMu
Bongani Ndlovu
Online Reporter