Interview from Bindura, Zimbabwe with family support worker

The National Co-ordinator for SOS Family Strengthening Programme Zimbabwe explains more about the project which helps families in the community to stay together.

Janie Dufty: Camela Pfupa from the national office, SOS Children's Villages Zimbabwe.

Please could you tell us a little bit about the work that the social centres and family strengthening programmes are doing in Zimbabwe at the moment?

Camella Pfupa: errm... currently we are operating in the three locations, Bulawayo, Bindura and Harare. For Harare it is Glen View, Glen Norah and Budiriro and in Bindura it is Chipadze and Chiwaridzo, Maizelands community and Manenga. In Bulawayo we are in Makokoba, Mzilikazi and Waeenja. In the three locations we are generally calling ourselves the family strengthening programme because what we are all striving to do is to support the families to enable them to protect and support their children within their own families and using their own local resources. What we are focussing on mainly is through what we call the family development plan where each family has said what they are able to do and how we should be supporting them so that they become self reliant and reducing the level of vulnerability. So currently, most of them have opted to look at income generating projects and they have different projects that they are conducting. Again, it mainly depends on the community that they are in.

For Harare it's mainly for manufacturing of food items, candles, sewing uniforms for the children and very little agricultural production because it is an urban setup. For Bindura it is mainly a rural setup so it has lots of agricultural opportunities so people are mainly focussing on agriculture. Production of maize which is the staple food in their fields, nutrition gardens and manufacturing or processing of agricultural products, such as peanut butter making is one of their major activities there, including sunflower pressing for oil is also another activity that they carry out quite a lot in Bindura. With the new community that we have just started, the Maizelands community, there is also going to be honey - I'm not sure if you call it making or manufacturing, but they are going to be keeping bees in order for them to get honey.

In Bulawayo, it's a mixed group, where we are having again mainly the manufacturing side just like in Harare, but we have a community centre which SOS bought and we are using that for gardening and there is a lot of farming that is going on there in terms of horticultural production. They are producing tomatoes and other vegetables for sale and for household consumption. Basically, that is what we are doing in terms of family strengthening activities. Then we have an aspect of psycho-social support where we are focussing on trying to stabilise their emotions - both the adults and the children. It is one major activity that we have in the programme where we do various things such as group grief work sessions; we also have individual counselling for both adults and children and we also have sports for recreational therapy. That is one big activity that we have particularly in Bindura: it is very well accepted there. Some of the children have also been accepted into what we call "Chipawo" which is a children's performing arts workshop. They are performing in Harare and at big functions. They have been invited to come and train others in Harare as well, so our Bindura location is doing very well in terms of Chipawo as a recreation therapy for the children.

What sort of challenges are the families facing in maintaining the care that is necessary for their children?

Camela Pfupa: The major obstacle that they have is in terms of resources or in ensuring that children access services; because if a child has to go to school, they need to pay fees; if the child has to go to hospital, they need to pay the hospital. If the children have to eat at home they've got to find the food for the children. So those are the major challenges that they have. And in terms of income generation we hope that they should have disposable income to pay for these services and also enough to buy food for themselves so food security and disposable income are the major challenges that they have and that is what we are trying to address with the income generating initiatives.

Janie Dufty: And the emotional issues that you mention that you have to deal with? In Zimbabwe we obviously have a very high HIV/AIDS prevalence; you have mentioned grief counselling there...People must just be struggling to survive. How are the social centres and the family strengthening programmes actively supporting the parents specifically to look after their children?

Camela Pfupa: The major experience that we have had in the past is that these are the things that always stress the caregivers. That they can't pay fees for the children, they don't have food, they can't send the children to school, they can’t send the to hospital, so just working with them as a family; maybe paying the school fees in part for the first period, giving them the food pack, that sort of becomes the initial psych-therapy that we give them. And then as we get into the softer areas in terms of training, one-to-one counselling, you find that they feel more relieved and they even express this. In some of them it is very apparent in just their general out look that they have since improved from the time that you met them in the first instance and over the period with all the interventions coming through we have realised a big change in some of the families.

Providing support for children and families in Zimbabwe

Janie Dufty: So initially it is simply the fact that someone, somewhere cares enough about their family provides the impetus for the support that they need to be able to start re-building their own capacities?

Camela Pfupa: And some of them will have lost a lot of resources during the illnesses, so that means they don't have some 'fall-back' position. Our coming into this particular household, at least we pay fees, maybe provide a food pack for the first few months, the first three or four months, in the first instance while thy are finding their feet - what project do they want to do? Once they decide on that, they get the training in business management, they get the skills training, if maybe they don't know how to make the peanut butter, or the candles, or the sewing. After that, they can get the start-up capital and they start moving on gradually. So some of them have already taken over (from SOS family strengthening programme) paying fees, the purchase of (school uniforms) and put food on the table. Now we are maybe moving on into enhancing their skills in that particular business, improving it to make sure that they yield enough to be able to take care of all of the basic services.

Janie Dufty: So those coping strategies are already there, they just need the impetus to really get them started?

Camela Pfupa: Yes, that is quite true because what they are lacking is the resources to start. Even if I want to buy a knitting machine they do not have the resources. Even if they want to buy the wool, but they have the skills, some of them, they have the skills, but because they do not have the resources to start themselves up they just sit at home with the skill. Even equipment that is almost becoming obsolete now because it has not been used for years because they can not afford to buy the raw materials;

Janie Dufty: Thanks, Camela, very much for that insight into the family strengthening programmes in Zimbabwe.

SOS Children has been working in Zimbabwe since 1983 and has three unique children's villages based at Bindura, Harare, and Bulawayo. The SOS Family Strengthening Programme in Zimbabwe supports children and families affected by HIV/AIDS through programmes run from each of the SOS Social Centres at each of the children's villages.

You can support children in Zimbabwe by becoming a child sponsor.