Since 2002, Village Hope, a farm located in rural Zimbabwe, provides a loving home to AIDS orphans. Education is a top priority, and serving others is a way of life. From a simple beginning … “Let’s save a couple of kids” … this project has grown to include more than 20 children of various ages in residence.
Beginning with a preschool to server rural children with no opportunity to attend school, Village Hope school adds a grade each year, presently reaching grade four. With plans to expand annually, those first little children and all who follow will have a stable education. At this time nearly 100 children attend the school. The goal is to make college available to each child who qualifies. One of our first boys, saved from the street, is now earning a PHD in Wales.
Village Hope, now, also reaches out to the community, organizing programs that feed lunch to more than 2,000 hungry school children each day, while also providing broader community feedings for hundreds of people from surrounding villages. Village Hope also supports a “Seed to Sadza” project that provides seed corn for planting and enough Mielie-Meal to get households by until their crops come in.
Village Hope also oversees its own animal distribution project called “pass it on,” providing animals to neighbors in deep need. A women’s empowerment project offers guidance, and life skills, to women in the community. The new Village Hope Library offers an opportunity for an introduction to books, computers, and an opportunity to attend literacy classes.
And best of all, imagine this … children once homeless, now living in hope, are learning to pass that Hope onto neighbors in need.