Kutenda Children's Home
Kutenda is an orphanage for orphaned and vulnerable children, providing a home, medication and basic education for children from the age of 4 to 18 years. Located in Masembura, in rural northeastern Zimbabwe, Kutenda is licensed for 24 children and is currently home to 12 children whose parents died from AIDS or could no longer provide for their children for other reasons.
Journey Partners has worked on several building projects with Kutenda Children’s Home to facilitate the expanded care of 24 children and caregivers. In 2014-15, we helped build an office and guest room and completed the administration building. In 2016, we built a chicken house and expanded the number of chickens, feed, and medications. Clean water was the focus in 2017, with the installation of an agriculture well and deep well bore to serve the children’s home and community.
Education
JourneyPartners began as an effort to find support and assistance for a rural primary school in central Zimbabwe. In 1995, a small team of US volunteers, together with a large team of Zimbabwean parents and other volunteers, partnered in our first construction project – a library and administration building for Zororo Primary School in Gweru.
In 2012-13, JourneyPartners had the privilege of working in Burure to construct a two room block of a secondary school. This school is fed from a primary school with over 1000 students and is working out of outdoor "sheds." Exposed to the elements, the students struggle to maintain focus as the teachers write on concrete slabs anchored into the ground. More recently, we have also completed the construction of a 2-classroom school building at South Gokwe.
Clean Water
Water is the lifeline of any community. In some areas of Zimbabwe, especially those far from city resources, deep water wells can be the only answer. JourneyPartners works to provide dry areas of the country with access to clean water. We've also worked with clinics to install water purification systems that can run on a 12-volt car battery and table salt.
In 2006, JourneyPartners assisted local builders in constructing a 75,000-liter water storage tank at the Baptist Conference Center in Gweru, Zimbabwe. More recently, we have worked on deep, clean-water boreholes for Nenyunga, home to the minority Tonga people, to provide portable chlorine-generating water purification systems in remote areas without access to clean, potable water.
In 2017, we placed four well bores: two in Kutenda, one in the Gokwe region for the school project, and one in Nyamacheni Village, which had only a dirty pond for water.
Health
JourneyPartners has a long-standing history with Sanyati Baptist Hospital. Based in Sanyati, Zimbabwe, the hospital has six outlying clinics which provide vital care to areas where medical help would otherwise be hours away. Each year we aim to bring medical supplies, birthing kits, and baby hats to support the hospital's huge undertaking.
Click below for a year-by-year list of JourneyPartners' accomplishments in Zimbabwe. We are grateful for the many volunteers and donors who have made this possible — please consider how you might get involved to help us continue this vital work!
