KADOMA history

There have been two trips by Cornerstone to Stevenage's twin town youth link of Sungano in Kadoma, one in 1997 and the other in 2001, with an intervening return visit from Sungano to Stevenage in 1998.

It was a venture that came out of a visit to Stevenage from some of the ministers in Kadoma - a very good, cross-cultural link. Stevenage has many good links with Kadoma, including with the library, the primary schools, the Gordon Craig Theatre to name but a few, and now there was to be a youth link between a cross denominational youth group in Stevenage, (Cornerstone), with a cross denominational youth group in Kadoma, (Sungano).

It wasn't long before the whole country of Zimbabwe began to undergo a change, and times got harder for the friends we made in the twin twin of Kadoma. We began to hear that Sungano was searching for ways to help their community, and eventually decided they wanted to run some kind of fish project. As meat was becoming harder to obtain for those with little money, cheap fish would be a great support to families, where money was becoming harder to earn, as unemployment was at 50% nationally, and nearer 75% among the young people.

At the local hospital, in the year 2000, children were already having to be helped to recover from the first stages of malnutrition, (although how, when there was sometimes no rehydration fluid available, never mind paracetamol, quinine or many other drugs in the hospital!), and parents were shown how to cope better with the far lower availability but higher cost of food. Sungano asked if there was any way we could help them set up their Fish Project.

And so the second visit was arranged from Cornerstone's young people to Sungano in Kadoma. We had done some research and discovered that it would cost around £5,000 to set the project up, and buy fish for 1 year. Between February and July 2001, the churches that support Cornerstone went to extraordinary lengths to raise the money. We gave everyone who came to the launch of the fund-raising time, a £2 coin, and challenged everyone to make that money work for them! At the end of that period, people came with their hard-earned cash, and raised a total of - ....wait for it.... - £10,000!!

We began to see that the whole idea of the youth linking wasn't our idea at all, but God's! It was for such a time as this, a difficult part of Zimbabwe's history, that we were in touch with Sungano. God may be doing this kind of thing, in different ways, all over the world, linking Christian communties to each other, to be part of His provision to each other. It was happening in the very early chuch. You can read about it in Paul's letters, in Romans and in Corinthians.

The second group visiting Kadoma arrived in late July 2001. We made a lot of new friends, and met old ones as we joined in with community activities like painting the outside of a local school for blind children, visited a home for the elderly, taking them some clothes and cleaning their terribly unhygienic toilet and shower block; we painted road-crossing stripes on a road, cleared and planted a garden area, and visited a home-cum-school for young offenders. This last trip was very valuable, and we made a lot of friends there and made a return visit. We were invited to attend a day of celebrations at a local school, where hundreds of children from 4 or more local schools had been rehearsing dances, poetry, music playing and speeches, thanking the people of Stevenage for their support. Many children echoed each other by saying that the help with school fees had changed their lives, and they would thank God for us for ever!

We also, of course, helped to set up the Fish Project. We handed over most of the finances raised, and set things in place with them to promote the most beneficial of future for the project, ceremonially handing them the responsibilty for the project by handing across to them a whole bream, caught in the Zambeze at Kariba, and four lit candles.

None of us had thought that a youth link with Kadoma would have been so timely, or so beneficial to the Stevenage or the Kadoma contingents! We did know that any such linking would have its tremendous effects - you can't visit another culture and be untouched by it - but we had no idea that the link would come into its own in such a dramatic way.

Can you imagine being in your teens or twenties, having not had a full education, and if you did, never having had a job? Can you imagine finding it hard to get enough food to eat each day because it costs so very much?

If a whole chicken costs £5 here, it would be the equivalent of £10 in Kadoma - and the average weekly wage is equivalent to £30, and some people earn only £15 a month! Can you imagine if there was very little ordinary food available in the shops, until there came day when there was no salt or sugar, no bread or rice, no milk, no butter or margarine, no cooking oil and no frozen meals?  

Can you imagine, that in that situation, with not enough to eat themselves, the young people are organising the buying of kapenta (small dried fish) from big business fisheries, and arranging haulage with another company; they then pack the fish themselves into 1kg and 1.5kg bags, and organise how and where they are to sell the packs? And what's more, it's a voluntary community work, so they don't get paid for it! Believe me, it's a "tall order"! It has a lot of set backs and problems, but they are doing it!

Many businesses are out of action, unable to continue trading, but the Sungano Fish Co-operative is still functioning! One person who commented on the fact was Christina Moyo, the senior teacher who visited Stevenage later in April 2002. She said it was very noticable that Sungano were still selling their fish when other traders were nowhere to be seen during a particularly difficult time in Kadoma.

We may not know what the future holds for the Cornerstone/Sungano link, but God planned for it to begin, set it up and showed us part of its purpose, and He now holds that future.

Marionette, who is the secretary of Sungano and of the Sungano Fish Co-operative, recently wrote to me. She says she sends her greetings to all in Stevenage, and a special "hello" to Cornerstone friends.

Please pray for the Sungano Fish Co-operative and the young people who run it, despite the odds. It can only continue by God's grace, and with your prayer and support.  Pray for Marionette,  Wellington  and Douglas particularly, as they are the key people for the Co-operative.

Jan Addison