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By Eveline Chikwanah
12:00 P.M. ET April 12, 2013 | CHIRUMHANZU, Zimbabwe
Chabadza community leaders tour the outside of the expectant mothers’
shelter in Chirumhanze, Zimbabwe. UMNS photos by Eveline Chikwanah.
View in Photo Gallery
With a sprightly spring in their steps, Jackson Munatsi, 74, and
fellow villager Richard Denhere, 74, enter the freshly painted room.
Munatsi gestures his counterpart to take a seat on the narrow hospital
bed. The elderly duo is not suffering from any ailment and their faces
light up as they narrate how a Zimbabwean tradition has brought joy to
their lives.
They are seated in the recently completed waiting mothers’ shelter
at Denhere Clinic in Chirumhanzu communal area, some 250 kilometers
south of the capital, Harare. Designed to serve pregnant women
awaiting delivery, the shelter has been furnished with 12 beds and will
open its doors when lockers and cupboards for storing the patients’
personal belongings are delivered.
“Chabadza found us working on rebuilding the shelter whose structure
had totally collapsed,” said Munatsi, chairperson of the Health Centre
Committee.
Zimbabwean tradition dictates that farmers going to the field take
extra hoes, or mapadza. Neighbors and friends passing the field are to
take up a spare hoe and lend a hand to get the work done faster. The
practice is known as chabadza.
In this communal spirit, the United Methodist Church in Norway and
Zimbabwe teamed to form the Chabadza Community Development Program.
There are now five projects in the Mutasa-Nyanga and Masvingo districts
of the Zimbabwe Episcopal Area.
Juliet Marara, secretary of the Chabadza committee at Denhere clinic
said the shelter was started in 1982 by the government but never
completed. “The Health Centre Committee was established to maintain
structures at the clinic and every household in the area served by the
clinic was levied $0.50 US per month to contribute toward maintenance
and refurbishment.”
Funds raised by the Health Centre Committee were used to resuscitate
the incomplete building. It was while the community was struggling
with this work that Chabadza stepped in. “The community had given the
local UMC pastor, Taurai Kandori, free accommodation at Denhere School,
and when he saw the villagers’ development efforts he introduced
Chabadza to us,” Marara said.
Juliet Marara (with baby on her back) and Abigail Mwadiwa demonstrate the convenience of the new cooking area of the shelter.
View in Photo Gallery
For Marara and her peers of child-bearing age, the shelter is a
blessing. They no longer have to travel 20 kilometers to the nearest
health centre with a waiting mothers’ facility.
“Women were being referred to a hospital about 20 kilometers away
yet we have a trained midwife at our clinic. This development enables
expectant mothers who live far from the clinic to come and stay here
while awaiting delivery, thereby ensuring they are within reach of
professional medical attention at the onset of labor or should any
complications arise.”
The United Methodist Church provided material for roofing, painting,
lockers, 12 beds and mattresses for the expectant mothers’ facility
and an adjacent kitchen with a total value of $7,000 US. The cooking
areas in the kitchen needed to be rebuilt at elbow level where pregnant
women can comfortably cook without straining themselves. The church
provided iron bars for the stoves and a security screen.
Denhere, the village headman, was overjoyed by the assistance
rendered by the church. “Chabadza found us hard at work, but we could
not afford to buy some of the materials required to complete this
shelter and kitchen. UMC through Chabadza bought roofing material,
paints and furnished the shelter, which is now ready for use.”
The Chirumhanzu community received the materials on Sept. 18, 2012,
and local laborers completed the construction. Marara said they floated
a tender and selected builders who had a good track record and whose
fee was competitive.
“We had set beginning of December as our deadline for completing the
buildings. We beat that target with a month to spare,” she said.
Other projects in the pipeline
The Chirumhanzu villagers are not resting on their laurels. They
have other development projects they want to embark on, possibly with
the assistance of Chabadza. Marara said three major projects are in the
pipeline.
“Following the successful completion of the mothers’ shelter, we
want to drill a borehole, and the area is currently being surveyed to
find a suitable site. We also wish to build a preschool classroom block
and a teacher’s cottage at Denhere Primary School.”
Headman Denhere says there are plans to build a toilet and bathroom
block for the maternity patients. The health centre needs to be fenced
with piglet wire to keep out pigs and other livestock.
“We need electricity at the clinic. The nearest place with
electricity is Chiona Secondary School, just three kilometres away. We
have a generator, which has broken down, and we now need a more
reliable source of power,” Denhere said.
The Chirumhanzu expectant mothers’ shelter is one of three projects
that have been completed under the Norway-Zimbabwe partnership, says
the Chabadza program director, the Rev Lloyd Nyarota.
“We have successfully completed a water project at Saungweme in
Manicaland and built a classroom block at Matombo School in Gutu,” he
said.
The Chabadza program started in April 2012 and is poised to make a
mark in the lives of beneficiaries. For the people of Chirumhanzu, the
program is a landmark in efforts to reduce maternal mortality because
of expectant mothers delivering at home without professional medical
attention because a clinic is too far to reach on foot and there is no
reliable transportation system.
*Chikwanah is a communicator for the Zimbabwe Episcopal Area.
News media contact: Tafadzwa Mudambanuki, Nashville, Tenn. (615) 742-5470 or newsdesk@umcom.org.
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