Nancy Clark's Talk:
In the year 2000 Nancy Clark visited a village in Zimbabwe with a friend for what she thought would be a one-time event to help with the AIDS crisis. While they were there, local grandmothers came to them with orphans whose parents had died of AIDS and for whom the grandmothers were unable to provide care. Nancy and her friend realized that a long-term plan was needed. The grandmothers had no marketable skills except for basketmaking, and they had no market for the baskets. The American visitors told the local women that they would help them just once to form a viable basketmaking enterprise, and they helped the grandmothers draw up a business plan. That commitment was made twenty years ago; and Nancy and her husband, Jim, are still traveling to Zimbabwe in support of the community that has developed. Their next trip back is scheduled for March 20.
Over those twenty years, households in the community have become self sufficient. Beyond the present forty-six basketmaking groups, the community has developed fifty-four garden projects, twelve sewing projects, twelve chicken projects, and just this year six goat projects. The women in the basketmaking groups have used profits from the chickens to purchase new cooking pots. Their basketmaking skills have developed into very special local designs. In collaboration with a group from the Netherlands, local children have organized a water supply system to support the chickens.
In the year 2000 with the help of the Foundation, community organizers supported fifty orphans in local education initiatives; they now supports over 900 students. Similarly, in the year 2000 the Foundation and the community supported only one child-headed household devastated by the AIDS crisis; in 2012 they supported 130 child-headed households; and this year they support 100 households, as the work of the Foundation helps to reduce the number of children orphaned by the AIDS epidemic. This growth has been the result of local effort and local planning. The Zienzele Foundation imposes nothing upon the local community but helps raise the funds needed for such items as school construction and the provision of much needed medical services.
School fees are raised through the basketmaking operations. Whereas the community earned $10 in basket sales the first year of operation, last year it raised $15,000. Fifteen students have moved on to post-secondary education--thirteen from child-headed households. One individual named Innocent did well in the local school, came to the United States and attended Lebanon College, and then eventually graduated from Middlebury College. Nancy and Jim Clark are not paid for their work. The Zienzele Foundation raises from $120,000 to $160,000 a year, most of which goes towards the schools and towards the support of child-headed families. These funds come largely from donations to the Foundation as a 501c3 organization.
The government in Zimbabwe is corrupt and inefficient. A container of supplies sent to Zimbabwe in 2017 by a UCC charitable organization still sits unopened in a warehouse, preventing the Zienzele foundation from accessing the supplies it had been allowed to include in the shipment. The economy is in shambles, and the unemployment rate is 84%. The total commitment of the local community has allowed the Zienzele Foundation's work to be successful despite the endemic corruption throughout the country. Even involvement from the nation's various Rotary clubs might be untrustworthy. The local women, however, have become empowered. They control the money, and they even make the very bricks that are used for the construction of community centers.
Nancy's original trip to Harare was for the purpose of helping with the AIDS crisis; the number of HIV deaths, however, has fallen rapidly over the last five years. Now twenty years later, the focus of the Foundation has broadened to include wellness clinics and community centers. The clinics provide services such as cancer screening for women who have never had that kind of support in their villages. The major project for the Foundation now is a drive to construct a third community center in the area. Architectural plans for a center have been drawn up by Christopher Smith from Norwich, and construction will start in the fall. So far $26,500 has been raised; $45,000 is needed to complete construction.
In part to advance its fundraising effort, the Foundation is holding a Zienzele Night Celebration at the Dartmouth Outing Club from 4:00 to 8:00 p.m. on May 22. Beside hors d'oeuvres served by the Barefoot Gourmet, there will be an organized walk around Occam Pond and entertainment provided by the Soyeya African Dance Troupe.
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