Online Reporter
Oliver Kazunga-Senior Business Reporter
ZIMPAPERS has donated 50 road runner chicks and 50 fruit trees to Munashe High Private School in Mutoko as part of its Corporate Social Responsibility programme to foster sustainable livelihoods and environmental protection in schools.
The handover, held at the school yesterday, was attended by officials from one of Zimpapers’ corporate partners, Friends of the Environment, as well as the Zimbabwe Prisons and Correctional Service and Munashe High Private School authorities.
Learners and officials from other local schools, such as Katsukunya Secondary, were also in attendance.
The chicks were donated courtesy of the Zimbabwe Free Range Poultry Association.
Speaking at the event, Zimpapers’ public relations and events manager Mrs Pauline Matanda said the donation was in line with the company’s commitment to community development and youth empowerment through practical initiatives.
“At Zimpapers, we believe that our responsibility goes beyond informing, educating and entertaining the nation.
“We also have a role to uplift the communities that support our work every day”.
Mrs Matanda said Zimpapers’ donation was not just about birds and trees, but about building resilience, entrepreneurial skills and sustainable agriculture knowledge among students.
Munashe High Private School is one of the institutions under the Zimpapers’ Junior Media Club.
Mrs Matanda said the donation would go a long way in bolstering the school’s agriculture projects while also serving as a nutritional and income-generating initiative.
The fruit trees include mango, orange, granadilla, avocado and mulberry.
Speaking at the same occasion, an environmentalist from the Friends of the Environment Mr Augustine Mukaro, whose organisation is a subsidiary of Nyaradzo, said they take environmental conservation and climate change issues seriously.
“As Friends of the Environment, we are attentive to issues of climate change and environmental conservation. Therefore, through our partnership with Zimpapers, the country’s largest media group, we have joined hands with a thrust to protect our environment through fostering the planting of trees.
“I am told Zimpapers has launched a Junior Media Club here, and as Friends of the Environment, we are challenging you today to establish an Environment Club so that we can nurture and protect our environment, especially against a backdrop of the adverse effects of climate change the world is reeling under,” he said.
Munashe High Private School co-director Mrs Chipo Gwangwadze expressed gratitude to Zimpapers and its corporate partners for the gesture, saying the donation would go a long way in enhancing the school’s practical learning component, particularly in agriculture, as well as fostering environmental sustainability.
“As a school, we are humbled by this donation and the support that Zimpapers and its corporate partners continue to extend to us.
“We are certainly going to ensure that the fruit trees and the chicks we have received today are put to productive use and help transform our school and the community at large,” she said.
