Mark Jeffery / Judd Morrissey, still from The Precession, 2010. Photo: John W. Sisson Jr.

The British Consul General, Robert Chatterton Dickson, hosts

UK/Chicago Performance

an evening of performance art

to benefit

Vanavevhu - Children of the Soil

Featuring Robin Deacon, Mark Jeffery, and Industry of the Ordinary

and held in conjunction with the UK Government Art Collection

Friday, April 13, 2012

7-10 p.m.

61st Floor of the Olympia Towers

161 East Chicago, Apt. 61P1

The ticket minimum donation is $20. All proceeds go to Vanavevhu.

Vanavevhu - Children of the Soil

Reports from Bulawayo and Chicago

It is hard to know where to begin with everything we have squeezed into this first quarter of 2012. Elizabeth and her team have been more than busy transferring operations to the new property, and Chicago has been occupied with various events on behalf of Vanavevhu and planning for Elizabeth's visit later this spring.

Bulawayo

Douglasdale

We completed the move to the Douglasdale property the first week of March, and Thenjiwe handled the logistics of the transfer with her customary efficiency and aplomb. Offices have been repaired and painted and floors replastered. Johannes Palula, our caretaker and gardener, has also moved into his new quarters at Douglasdale.

Our plans for the entrance garden

Energized by possibilities offered by the new location, the youth pulled out the plans they made in May 2011 for the Abilities property and adjusted them to suit Douglasdale. They and the staff are busy cleaning up the front of the property and, with the enthusiastic support of Bulawayo gardener Mr. Sibanda, are creating a herb garden and recreational space. The property has some junk gems that they are recycling as art features for our entrance--including a spiral staircase and a canoe. There are clay pipes that can be used for seeding strawberries and old fluorescent light trays that can be recycled for seedlings. Plans include a rockery, an orchard, a car park, and a new sign for the front gate displaying the Vanavevhu emblem. Although the transition to Douglasdale has not been without its challenges, the youth are hopeful and excited about their new home. As Thenjiwe says, "We are happy for the nyaya [story]."

The rockery takes shape

Introducing the Newest Members of Vanavevhu

Our third cohort of youth heads join us full time April 2. We don't yet have individual photographs, but we can at least make preliminary introductions of our nine new participants and their siblings:

• Innocent Ndaba cares for Mthokosizi, Melusi, and Simangele
• Nomathamsanqa Ndlovu cares for Linda, David, and Noreen Magutshwa
• Mlungisi Moyo cares for Ndani
• Willard Sithole cares for Bridget and Selina
• Nqobile Moyo cares for Mncedisi, Fortune, and Challenge
• Abigail Zulu cares for Takudzwa, Alicia, Aisha
• Talent Masuku cares for Terrance, Hlanganiso, Khethiwe, Tamia
• Clever and Simeleni Sibanda together care for Prince, Mandlenkosi, and Spencer

With eighteen heads of household, Vanavevhu now supports more than eighty family members. Our young participants take their responsibilities seriously. During orientation exercises, members of our most recent intake were asked, "If you were an animal, what animal would you be and why?" The answers were telling. Talent Masuku, with four siblings to provide for, would be a bird, which "flies and can find everything it needs." The Sibanda sister and brother team picked the cat, which is "clever and looks for food in all kinds of places." And Willard Sithole would be the lion, who is "strong and watches over his young, young sisters."

Vanavevhu youth lead orientation for new members

V-Squared Enterprises

Market Garden

In January, agricultural consultant Ben Rooney assessed the potential of Douglasdale, laying out plans for the market garden and creating a budget for essential infrastructure and initial plantings. (Please have a look at our wish list!) The growing season begins in September and October, so there is time to complete the heavy work of clearing before plowing, fertilizing, and seeding the beds. There are also fences to put up, not only against the resident cows but to keep out itinerant warthogs. We can manage the chickens.

Considering the work ahead

We are adding a mushroom project as part of the garden. Vavanvevhu is nothing if not fortunate in its volunteers, and mushroom guru Cathy Sharpe will be helping to set everything up. She has identified one of our buildings as ideal for growing mushrooms. Oyster mushrooms will be grown in bags hung from the beams and then dried and bagged. Cathy has donated a solar dryer for the project and is confident that she can have this portion of the business up and running by August.

A variety of outbuildings expand our garden's potential

Candle Making

Candle molds have been transferred and set up in one of the outbuildings, and candle production is beginning in earnest. Members of our first and second cohorts (the "Opportunes" and the "Chosen") will run the candle business while the newest members of Vanavevhu (who have not yet selected their own group name) attend the first-year sessions focusing on their security and stability. The Chosen are also beginning their entrepreneurship lessons. With the recent donation of a tobacco press that can be used just as well to press paper, we plan to make our own paper for wrapping the candles, recycling waste paper from district schools-an effort coordinated by Nettie Purchase.

Beekeeping

Attracting wild bees to our hives initially seemed easy, with a swarm even appearing early on in an unbaited hive outside Elizabeth's back door. But keeping bees resident has proved a different matter, as they fail to settle without a queen. We have therefore ordered seven colonies, with queens, from a beekeeper in Harare. Four of the colonies have been collected, and the remaining three should be in hand within a week. The Harare expert will come to Bulawayo to help us settle the colonies in our Douglasdale hives. We are planting lavender in anticipation, and the acacia trees on the property will also be key to our honey production.

Building Relationships

Each year, Vanavevhu youth spend a day of community service in the neighborhoods of Bulawayo. This year, they made basic repairs and did some painting at the St. John's Church in Tshabalala. The parish offered Vanavevhu the use of their meeting hall while we awaited completion of the renovations of our Douglasdale offices and classrooms. 

Helping at St. John's

On March 13, Elizabeth was inducted into the Belmont Rotary Club. Rotary has a very strong presence in Zimbabwe, and Elizabeth is looking forward to establishing closer relationships with the business community of Bulawayo, drawing on local expertise as V-Squared Enterprises is launched. An open house for members of the Mguza District Council is also in the works to introduce Vanavevhu to local leaders and to see how our efforts might dovetail with district youth projects.

Chicago

On March 9, our Chicago supporters attended a reception at the Goodman Theatre to learn about plans for Vanavevhu before an acclaimed performance of Danai Guirira's The Convert, the first of a projected trilogy on the history of Zimbabwe. Elizabeth and the Bulawayo team sent video greetings, and Ben Rooney was on hand to answer questions about Douglasdale.

Greetings from Douglasdale, March 2012

Friends of Vanavevhu are also invited to a reception and art performance at the residence of the British Consul General on April 13, as detailed in the adjacent invitation. This is one of the very few occasions when the Consul General's private residence is open to visitors. How can you top an evening of cutting-edge art, wine, and an amazing view over the city in the service of our favorite cause.

Vanavevhu is an exhibitor at WBEZ's fifth annual Global Activism Expo on Saturday, April 28, open only to organizations featured on Worldview's Global Activism series. It will be held at the UIC Forum, 725 West Roosevelt Road, Chicago. Admission is free, so we hope to see you there!

Some look at Africa and see conflict, hardship, and

poverty. It is easy to view Africa this way when Western media and culture constantly present a narrative of the continent that

relies predominantly on graphic images of famine and stories of vicious genocide.

Others look at Africa and see enormous potential and opportunities to create economically viable social programs. Many have found that countless African entrepreneurs are already thinking innovatively to solve the problems that their communities face. Organizations like Vanavevhu are popping up all over Africa that mix entrepreneurship and the belief that all people deserve to have their human rights recognized. These organizations are challenging the overwhelmingly negative discourse that is used to discuss Africa. They reveal an Africa that is innovative and forward moving rather than one locked in poverty and conflict.

One such organization is Komaza, which uses microforestry as a vehicle to alleviate poverty. Komaza, based in Kilifi, Kenya, teaches local farmers to grow trees on degraded, previously unusable land. The farmers then harvest the wood and sell it to recover costs and share profits. Komaza's goal is to build a financially viable for-profit business while introducing farmers to a sustainable source of income. Komaza founders identified a growing, and unmet, demand for wood products and seized the opportunity to create sustainable change in their community. Much like Vanavevhu's V-Squared Enterprises, Komaza is invested in making real improvement not only in the lives of local farmers, but in the national economy as well.

Inzozi Nziza, which means "Sweet Dreams" in Kinyarwanda, takes a similar approach. Inzozi Nziza is Rwanda's first and only ice cream shop. Founder Gakire Katese started with an idea to create a sustainable business for the women of Rwanda's first women's drumming group. The ice cream shop would also bring economic opportunity to a country going through a difficult postgenocide period. Through innovative thinking, the women of Inzozi Nziza have created a sustainable business that will not only expand their own economic power but benefit their entire community.

Like the founders of Komaza and Inzozi Nziza, Elizabeth and the Vanavevhu team are dedicated to facilitating lasting change in the lives of those they work with. The work they do is changing the way the world sees Africa. They offer a positive narrative of hard-working entrepreneurs throughout Africa who are committed to bringing about real social and economic change in their countries.