ZOE “helps children help themselves,” but we also inspire the children to help others. The Zimbabwe Zoe Empowers program is especially active with outreach projects.
Nearly every working group in Zimbabwe is involved in some kind of community service project. They clean up church and school grounds. They repair community facilities like cattle dip tanks, local roads that become washed out from rains, and village water pumps. In the photo above, the Kubatana Rowa Working Group repairs a broken community water pump.
Children in Zimbabwe are especially concerned for the elderly and poor of their community. Often, once the children are able to achieve even a minimal level of self-sufficiency, they begin to help others by sharing food, passing on the training they have received, or even just making sure to visit those who may be shunned by others in the community.
For older community members they provide services such as gathering wood, cleaning up yards, and cooking meals. As Zoe Empowers Program Facilitator Chico Nsama notes, “Such acts of kindness have touched most people’s hearts within the community. The once looked down upon are now extending a hand of mercy.”
In one community, the local leader, Chief Zimunya, was especially impressed with the Zoe Empowers children and their contributions to the village, “I would like to thank Zoe Empowers for the good job being done to children in my community. They are now able to work for themselves, attend school, pray and help me as well as others in the community. I am also happy about their involvement in community work. People in the community were no longer working in the community field that is meant to benefit the vulnerable but am happy that the children are now filling in that gap.”
Through Zoe Empowers, children learn not just how to take care of themselves, but also how to care for others. In this way they are prepared for a future of greater opportunities and greater joy in serving God and one another.
