Vanavevhu provides food, healthcare, education, and targeted training to facilitate the financial self-sufficiency of child-headed households in Zimbabwe.
Our Mission
Our mission at Vanavevhu is to provide support in the way of food, health care and education, as well as targeted training, to promote the financial self-sufficiency of child-headed households affected by the AIDS pandemic and the economic and political crisis in the Matabeleland region of Zimbabwe.
“What’s great about the way that we work is that we’ve created a consultative relationship with our youth. We’ve created a situation where we’ve listened to what they want. They told us what they really wanted was to be able to work and make enough money to take care of their siblings. And so, we’ve created a program that taps into their already nascent entrepreneurial spirit—and we’re teasing that out and helping them learn how to start a small business and create a small business that will make money and sustain to take care of their families.”
What We've Achieved
- Vanavevhu has stabilized the lives of these at-risk youth by providing reliable assistance with food, education, and the cost of utilities, along with workshops that capitalize on their already formidable entrepreneurial instincts.
- Vanavevhu participants have learned candle making, built beehives, and started a market garden as an income-generating enterprise to support their families and Vanavevhu operations.
- Reticent and suspicious children, with little reason for hope, have become confident and engaged young women and men.
- Vanavevhu has validated the concept that isolated youth can be brought back into mainstream society to be viewed as productive members of the community.