ZANE Charity Update - Sept 2021

Earlier this year, Stockopedia readers & others raised nearly £30k for the Zimbabwe humanitarian aid charity, ZANE. I was staggered at the generosity of many subscribers, and we utterly smashed my anticipated target of £4k, thank you again to everyone who contributed.

As many of you know, I visited ZANE in Zimbabwe in 2019 (I had no prior connection with Zimbabwe) after meeting & becoming friends with the founder of ZANE, Tom Benyon, himself a keen private investor. It's a remarkable small charity, focused mainly on basic assistance (food, pills, support, etc) for destitute pensioners, whose lives & savings were destroyed by repeated bouts of hyperinflation and economic collapse. It provides these forgotten people with some dignity in their final years, and alleviates terrible suffering.

ZANE also runs other programmes, including weekly drops of food for care homes, creating pop up schools in townships, supporting retired commonwealth soldiers & their dependents, supporting a club foot correction programme, and providing counselling and support for traumatised women who have been caught up in political violence. I've seen most of these programmes in action, meeting many of the staff and recipients of ZANE's help, they make an incredible difference to many peoples' lives.

Anyway, ZANE recently confirmed receipt of funds from our fundraising, promising to update us on the use of funds. Most has been applied to the core activity, of support for destitute pensioners, but several of our donors also opted to direct their donations towards the pop-up schools in townships (desperately poor, over-crowded areas).

I've just been emailed this update below from ZANE, and want to share it with you, so that the many of you who contributed can see where some of your money has gone. I hope you find this interesting.

Dear Paul. I hope you are well. I wanted to send you an update on our pop-up classes as I know this is an area you focussed on with your fundraising and many of your contacts specifically donated to this.

We opened our 8th Class with 12 children, on the 6th July 2021 and we are now in our 9th week. Zimbabwe entered a strict lockdown in early June and all schools in Zimbabwe have been closed since. However, as you know, we maintain contact with all the children attending our pop-up classes and crucially, we have maintained the feeding programme. The 8th class - funded entirely through your fundraising started on 6th July. We began by giving the children a nutritious hot meal, ePap - a nutritious porridge and handing out worksheets and a reading book to each of the children to complete at home. Teaching is not allowed during lockdown and this is strictly implemented by the government. Our way round it is to give out worksheets and we have permission from the local council to continue to feed the children.

The government has recently announced that schools can re-open on 6th Sept. We are delighted. The children are so excited for us to start the classes again. One of the children you are helping who has joined the new class is Taziva. He is 7 years old and from a very poor family of six. He has three younger siblings and a cousin who is five - all living in a tiny one room 'house'. Taziva's mother has had a rough life and is destitute - she looks after all five children on her own whilst trying to earn some money cleaning. She is delighted that Taziva has been given a place at our pop-up classes - she was in tears and so grateful. In the short time we have been working alongside Taziva, we can see a positive physical change; he is putting on weight and beginning to smile more.

Your generosity is changing the lives of the 12 children attending this new class and many others attending our pop-up classes who have benefited from your incredible fundraising.

Please share this with your contacts and let them know just what a difference their generosity is making.

.

Tom's Sponsored Walk

Each summer, Tom and wife Jane (plus dog, Moses!) do sponsored walks in the UK as one of the main fundraising efforts for ZANE. Despite Tom accumulating more replacement knees & hips each year, the show still goes on!

The sponsored walk began 2 days ago, on 30 August, and in total will be completed on 13 Sept, covering 137 miles. Full details here.

Tom's personal daily blog on the walks won't appeal to everyone, but is always thought-provoking, well written, and often very funny.

The sponsorship page is here, very grateful for anything you can spare.

Best wishes, Paul.