SOS Vocational Training Centre Bindura repairs footbridge

Engineering students from SOS Vocational Training Centre Bindura have been helping the local community by repairing a high footbridge that had fallen into disrepair and become dangerous.

It is quite common in Zimbabwe for there to be two crossings over a river at the same point. One 'low' bridge, which during the dry season carries road and foot traffic from side to side and one high 'rope' bridge for foot crossings only during the rainy season, when rivers can swell by several metres within minutes during the torrential downpours of rain that occur from late January through until mid March. The two bridges that cross the Pote river, just a kilometre away from SOS Maizelands Farm School, convey many of the students, teachers and community members to and from the school each day as the river divides the school and its surroundings from the local town of Bindura. The high footbridge is estimated to be about15 metres high and about 150 metres from end to end. For most of the year, the high footbridge falls into disuse and poor repair. Each year, before the rainy season, the community attempt repairs to the bridge. However, with the difficulties that have faced Zimbabwe over the last years, few repairs have been able to be made and the bridge had become even more dangerous than usual.

Staff from SOS Vocational Training Centre and the school, along with members of the community came together recently to make the bridge safer. The corrugated iron footpath was replaced and wire mesh sides were installed. Any areas which were rusted were replaced or extra metal was welded into place. Checks were made on all of the suspension wires. Most exposed areas of metal were painted with aluminium paint to try and ward off corrosion and rust.

Fisanai Sibanda is nineteen years old and grew up at SOS Children's Village Bulawayo, in the south of Zimbabwe. Now he is a trainee welder at the SOS Vocational Training Centre. Misheck Chifamba, a tutor on the course says that Fisani is a brilliant performer and is keen in both his theoretical studies and his practical work as well as being mature in his outlook. As if to demonstrate this, Fisani had this to say about working on repairing the footbridge: "Sometimes it is good to plough back into society and this is exactly what we are doing on this project. I think that I need to make it crystal clear to youths all around the globe that SOS Children's Villages have always been good to us and we need to emulate their example. I feel that it is time that our local community benefitted from the skills that we have been taught."

The repairs to the bridge are not the only work which has been going on in the area. Three new classrooms are about to be completed at SOS Maizelands Farm too in order to alleviate some of the overcrowding of classrooms, which had meant that areas intended for storage had been put to use as teaching areas. Zbiri nani tanga tajaira kudzidza tiri muma storeroom!" ("It is better for us now as we had got used to learning in storerooms!") commented Nomina Mabvure, aged seven who is in Grade two.

Article written by Mishek Chifamba, Trainer at SOS Training Centre Bindura.