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Advocacy for access to education bears results
Habakkuk Trust
November 26, 2013

Dambashoko Advocacy Action Team launches admin block

The Habakkuk Trust Dambashoko Community Advocacy Action Team will tomorrow (Wednesday 27 November 2013) be launching a community initiated school administration block at Dambashoko Primary School in Gwanda as part of the team’s broader advocacy for access to basic education in the district.

The Action Team constructed the administration block using local resources that were mobilized using the mobilization and advocacy skills taught by Habakkuk Trust in year 2008.

Habakkuk Trust raises funds for rural school

In an effort to improve access to education in rural Matabeleland, a local Non Governmental Organization, Habakkuk Trust, last week organized a golf tournament at Harry Allen Golf Club in Bulawayo to raise funds for the completion of a classroom block at Datata Primary School in Gwanda ward 2.

Professional golfers from Bulawayo on Saturday the 23rd of November 2013 marked their tee –offs for a charity cause as they sought to raise funds to complete the construction of a classroom block at Datata Primary School in Gwanda Ward 2. The Charity Golf Tournament that ran under the theme: Give a Rural Child an Education Campaign, was held at Harry Allen Golf Club and funds raised shall be used to buy cement and roofing material for the completion of the Datata School Classroom Block.

The tournament featured a variety of fundraising activities such as a raffle, balloon popping and pat-pat for amateur golf players. The initiative sought to assist the Datata Habakkuk Trust Community Advocacy Action Team that was trained by Habakkuk Trust in year 2007, to complete a classroom block that will benefit about 90 students in the rural community of Gwanda. Datata Primary School was founded in 1952 and currently the school is operating with only 4 classrooms a situation that has resulted in hot-seating and overcrowding. Sometimes some grades learn in the open. The Community Advocacy Action Team has so-far managed to mobilize the community to construct a classroom block that is now at roofing level but they are failing to complete it due to high levels of poverty exacerbated by persistent drought.

In his speech during the Golf Tournament, former Minister of Education, Sports, Arts and Culture Senator David Coltart (who was in the company of his wife Jennie), indicated that in his involvement in the education sector he came to appreciate the value of education even more, observing that “despite the passion for education in the country the state of the education institutions particularly in rural areas was cause for concern”.

The tournament was attended by civic organisations, national leaders, members of the golf clubs, and business people.

Times have changed and the state of rural education calls for different strategies from multiple actors. It is in this context that Habakkuk Trust was in partnership with corporate organizations and other stakeholders in holding this fundraising event which was the first in Habakkuk Trust’s Corporate-Civic and Community Partnership Project.

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