Rose of Sharon is an organization that caters for 120 children aged 18 and below. Our children are located in four homes, and they are grouped according to age. The children are currently attending school and some of them are about to write their grade 7 and Zimsec ‘O’ Level examinations.
Our current activities:
School
Our children are currently busy with school since this is the third and final term of 2022. Seven of our children will be writing their final grade 7 examinations and nine students will be writing their ‘O’ Level final examinations this year. Though the children are going to school our operations have been greatly affected because of the high cost of living. Hyperinflation has also become the order of the day and this has affected our day to day living. Church has been going well as usual and we have continued to encourage our children to keep up with their faith and prayers. Midweek prayers are done during lunch hour and evening. Our main service is done every Sunday and our children take turns to preach in church.
Maize Project
This October our main task is to prepare the land for the upcoming maize season. Our staff is busy preparing the land by tilling it and getting rid of rubbles so that once the rainy season starts, we will be fully prepared to start the maize project which is our main project. Garden project Our Garden projects continue to progress, and they mainly contain vegetables and onions. These gardens have been assisting us in providing relish for the children as well as generating some income since some of the vegetables are sold for profit in order to pay some of our bills. The garden contains vegetables like cabbages, covo and tsunga.
We have now reached the farming preparatory season in Zimbabwe. We are expecting to receive our first rains in the beginning of November. Both in Borrowdale and rural areas where we are doing the farming, we are busy tilling the land. We are expecting to cultivate maize, ground nuts and sunflower this year. We will maintain our usual acres we cultivate every year. We are expecting some huge rainfall in the coming season, and we are so much delighted.
We are quite thrilled with the broilers project as an empowerment tool to raise more funds for the orphan care project. We had quite some experiences with the last batches, and we believe that there many learning curves necessitated by the ever-changing environment in the poultry arena. We are delighted that were able to produce big birds that boosted our market share. We kept about 450 birds and successfully slaughtered more than 400 birds. We sold more than 380 birds @ $6.00 each and gave 60 birds towards the orphan care. We are hoping that our next batch will be able to be more fluid and efficient. We now have 750 birds and we decided to keep a larger number as we have passed the winter season.
Our main concern and or challenge remain electricity and water coupled by the need for better chicken runs / fowls. We are so much delighted with current successes, and we remain hopeful to do more now and in the future.
Thank you for your support!