The Sunday News
Mehluli Sibanda, Senior Reporter
THE Seventh Day Adventist Church, Zimbabwe West Union Conference (ZWUC) donated mealie-meal as well as sugar beans to the needy in Bulawayo targeted at the vulnerable members of society.
The donation consisted of 22 tonnes of mealie-meal and four tonnes of beans and was handed out at the church’s headquarters in the city.
Speaking during the donation last week, ZWUC president Dr Micah Choga, the said the church was aiming at alleviating the burden on the already vulnerable groups such as the elderly, disabled, widows and even the church’s literature evangelists who cannot earn a living because of restrictions put in place to curb the spread of Covid-19.
“We have 2 220, 10kg packs of mealie-meal that are meant for 2 220 households, we are not just sending mealie-meal, there is beans so that each pack is going with 1kg beans. We are targeting the elderly, the disabled, widows and widowers, child headed families and also our literature evangelists who are self-supporting and at this moment they can’t support themselves so that are the groups that we are targeting to assist,’’ Dr Choga said.
The mealie-meal and beans were divided between the two conferences under the ZWUC, that is the West Zimbabwe Conference and South Zimbabwe Conference. Dr Choga said the church has noted that even in the eastern suburbs, there are people in need of assistance, hence they would not be left out.
“Each conference is going to receive 1 110 hampers targeted for 1 110 households, it’s going to be the mealie-meal and also the beans for each family. We are targeting the whole of Bulawayo, we noticed that these days even in the low-density areas we have vulnerable people, in the high-density areas we also have those vulnerable people,’’ he said.
The funds for the mealie-meal and beans came from the allocations that were meant for travelling and meetings.
“What we have done as a church, we are the head office in this region, we have collaborated with two other offices and put our resources together, we did not have a pre-planned budget so what we have done, we have said to each entity look at your travel budgets, look at your seminar budgets and all those have been re-purposed to make this possible,” said Dr Choga.
To avoid having people gathered, Dr Choga indicated that they arranged for the donations to be taken directly to the identified beneficiaries.
“What is going to happen is that the districts have put in the number of people that they have identified in their area so these are going to be distributed, dropped at each church and they will take those to the beneficiaries because we also want to avoid bringing people together. Because of Covid-19, we are cognisant of the well-being and protection of the people. This is why we are not going to bring people together so that they receive, there will be people who will take these to the houses,’’ he said.
A donation of face masks was also made to the office of the Minister of State for Bulawayo Provincial Affairs, Cde Judith Ncube.
“We donated 1 000 masks to the office of Minister of State for Provincial Affairs, our security also needs to be protected as they are working with people in this period of time. We are hoping to get some more masks, some of them are going to our own clinics and also our own workers need protection.”
