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Victoria Falls Lion Rehabilitation and Community Programme update Newsletters » June/July 2007 »Victoria Falls Lion Rehabilitation and Community Programme update The Victoria Falls project volunteers get their hands dirty in the local community… Monday 4th June 2007 On Monday the 4th of June a crew of volunteers visited Chamabondo school in Mkhosana, just outside Vic Falls town and met with the whole of grade 7 to get their hands dirty and share some ideas on the environmental future of the school. We spent the morning there, in which time we managed to plant a second vege patch (the first was done last month with previous volunteers) This time we planted cabbages and lettuce’s, lets hope they do ok. We teamed up with Environment of Africa who are working hard with schools all over Zimbabwe in a bid to promote and implement their Policy on Environmental Management in Schools (POEMS). They kindly donated 45 young Jatropha trees to the school which we planted along one of the main fences with the help of the kids. The long-term plan is to plant Jatropha around the whole school perimeter. The seeds of the Jatropha can then be harvested and sold back to Environment Africa to be made into soap, oils and bio-fuels. By far the most significant change we made that day was the renovation of the water trough. The cement trough had a large hole at one end and cracks all over which prevented it from being used for storage purposes. The water pressure in the school is extremely low so it was taking the kids an eternity to fill up their water bottles and therefore the plants were not receiving adequate water. With some left over cement from the school, a gate valve and some piping we were able to repair the cracks and seal the large hole with a new drainage outlet. Before leaving we pruned some of their Moringa (the miracle tree) and spread it out to let it dry. Once dried it can be pounded and the powder sold for its incredible nutritional value.    Wednesday 9th June 2007 Chinotimba HIV/AIDS clinic                  It was our first contact with this clinic and the it was a great success. Good friendships were made and some great work was achieved. The clinic caters for roughly 400 people living with HIV and AIDS who come on a regular basis to receive their treatment. We were introduced to the clinic by James from Environment Africa who has started a gardening project at the grounds of the clinic. The aim of the project is to encourage the patients to take ownership of the garden, grow and sell their own produce (to raise funds for their treatment) and to use the various plants for their nutritional and medicinal properties. One of the problems the project is facing is the lack of morale and energy as the patients can easily become too sick to work in the garden. Another is the fact that AIDS is still a taboo subject and the garden is very exposed in the middle of the Chinotimba neighbourhood. This is difficult to combat, however our presence there seems to increase the confidence of the members and encourages others to come and help. In the long run we would like to turn the space into a pleasant area for people to come, sit, work, talk and a therapeutic place to be proud of. During our first visit we created a large compost heap and cleared a space to create new planting beds. We transplanted hundreds of onions into a companion planting bed along with the vegetable kovo. Wednesday 20th June 2007 We continued with the companion planting of tomatoes and rape and managed to fill the largest bed in the garden. We checked on the progress of the onions, at least 80% had come through. We worked hard together all morning, and on leaving everyone congratulated themselves on the amount we’d managed to achieve. More members of the clinic had come along to meet us and help with the garden.    Similar to a lot of projects in Vic Falls they are suffering with water pressure, so before the project can develop any further we want to build a concrete water trough. We’re hoping to make our own bricks using river sand and cement. All going well we should have that in place in the next few weeks.   Other news this month... African Expeditions on Special Offer!! Update from David Youldon, the ALERT (African Lion Environment and Research Trust) Update from our Victoria Falls Lion Rehabilitatoin and Community Programme project managers VOLUNTEER PROFILE: Stuart Jennings and Martin Milton FEATURED PROJECT: Mozambique Community and Soccer Development News Snippets Subscribe to our free newsletter Africa volunteer opportunities       print this page | bookmark this page (CTRL-D) | send to a friend back to top