Well-wisher donates bus to children’s home

Ivan Zhakata Herald Correspondent

A well-wisher, who preferred anonymity, has donated a 35-seater bus to Shungu Dzevana Trust in Hatfield, Harare, to help in their operations of taking care of orphans.

The trust also received a Nissan NP200 truck from OK Zimbabwe to use for administrative purposes.

Shungu Dzevana Trust is a private voluntary organisation that looks after orphaned and vulnerable children who lost their parents to HIV/AIDS.

The founder of Shungu Dzevana Trust, Sister Mercy Mutyambizi, said they were happy with the support they have been receiving from the corporate world.

“Educating a child who has been living in the street or who has been dumped in a bush is our way of trying to build Zimbabwe by taking away thieves, thugs, drug dealers and drug abusers. Some of the children who we have taken are now engineers, doctors, police officers and soldiers.

“It is a huge milestone for us though we cannot cover everyone in Zimbabwe. We want to do more than what we are doing and we appeal to the corporate world to continue supporting us,” she said.

The chairman of the Shungu Dzevana board members, Dr Oliver Chibage, said their aim was to give the less privileged and abandoned children a chance.

“Our objective is to ensure that in Harare all the street kids will have hope. We want to give them hope even if they are not staying here, that hope will drive them to greater heights and see them improving themselves. We want to develop an environment conducive to their expectations,” he said.

OK Zimbabwe marketing director Mrs Juliet Ziswa said the donation was a way of giving back to the community.

“We pride ourselves with a new purpose that says that we want to plant smiles on our employees, customers, shareholders and the communities we operate in. This donation as part of the OK Grand Challenge promotion is 100 percent bang on for our purpose because this is about creating theatres of happiness, planting those smiles and making happiness tangible.

“We believe that we are a responsible organisation and we would like to do well by doing good. We cannot just take from the community; we need to give back to the community in a way that will improve their lives.

Mrs Elizabeth Nerwande, head of corporate affairs at Mimosa said, “We have been supporting through our trust paying fees for certain children and on an annual basis and we also give them nutritional foods.”