The Children

The main mission of the Society is to give talented but needy orphans in Dzivarasekwa sustainable, long-term acces to education and welfare. Its supports the education of 400 orphans and also provides a daily hot meal, basix health care and opportunities to enjoy hobbies. The found are reised from public support, donations and sponsors for example from Finland. The Societys criterias are that the child has lost one or both parents and the guardian is unable to pay the school charges.

We have spent time with the children in the Activity Centre, where they can enjoy their daily meal, do their homework, attend extra lessons, use computer in the class and practise hobbies like basketball, football and cultural activities. The children´s names usually has a somekind of meaning, for example we have met Talent, Precious, Nomatter, Anyway and Blessed. Most of the children live with their families and relatives, 17 children live at the Shelter. We also had an opportunity to visit one of the girl´s home, where eight people slept in one little room and the condition of the house wasnt very good either.

On Sunday we made a trip to 250 km away from Harare to the boarding schools of Gutu and Dewure, where some of the children are studying. To get to the boarding school you have to be motivated and succesfull in your studies. The fees are expensive so the sponsor of the child has to pay little more that child can study there.

Finally here !

After over 24 hours travelling we arrived here on Tuesday. First we flew from Helsinki to London and from London to Johannesburg and finally to Harare, which is the capital of Zimbabwe. Now we are living about 15 km from Harare's central at the house of finnish couple who are the owners of the Zimbabwe Aids Orphans Society. They have been very friendly to us and we feel very welcome.  The weather here has been very variable. First two days were hot (over +25 c) and sunny but today has been rainy. Because of the rainy season, the nature here is amazing and beautiful. The local people here are very friendly, smiling and helpful. The native language here is english but we have some troubles to understand them because they pronounce words very differently and quickly. The youngest of the children can't speak english very well, they speak shona which is one of the local languages.

Our days have been very busy. Mornings we have spent with the children in Dzivarazekwa where the activity centre, shelter and the schools are. Dzivarazekwa is small suburd where the children are living and there we will spend most of the practical training. We have also had an opportunity to visit many different places in here Harare like movie-night in Embassy of Spain and lunch with the doctor of Zimbabwean national rugby team.

We have been little tired because the days starts at 6 a.m and ends at 6 p.m and after that we still have lots of schooltasks to do. Overall everything feels awesome and we are happy that we decided to come here.

Quick update.. more photos and stories coming when we have more time.. :) Miss you all !

Mission Zimbabwe

For those who don’t know where are we going to go and why (And sorry for those who haven’t heard us speaking nothing but this trip for whole autumn):

Like you already knew, we are studying to become a nurse. Our school gives us an opportunity to do practical placement abroad and good guess that is what we are going to do. Those practical placements according the curriculum are Chronic Disease Nursing and Nursing of Expecting Families, Children and Adolescents.

About year ago we heard about Zimbabwe Aids Orphans Society. The aim of the society is to help poor Zimbabwean orphans to receive a basic education and organize different kinds of activities at the Activity Centre. Because we have always wanted to travel to Africa and work with children, the place sounded perfect to us. The society is own by two finnish couple Seppo Ainamo and Oili Wuolle. We contacted them and told them about our trainings. They were very interested and happy to take us there. 

So for almost six months we have organized this 10 week trip for example financing and vaccines along with the lots of school work. But soon the waiting and all the hard work will be over, because tomorrow it’s bye bye cold Joensuu and hello Zimbabwe!

Ps. You can read more about Zimbabwe’s Aids Orphan Society from website: http://www.zim-orvot.org/

Hi classmates !

This blog has created for you lovely classmates! By reading this blog you all can know better what we are doing in Zimbabwe. We are writing this blog in english because this blog is a task related to our english course and we have to update this blog every week. Our aim is to tell you about our experiences during these two and half months in Zimbabwe. Our english language skills are not perfect so don't care about grammatical things..