More than 50 women and 20 girls at Good Beginning College in Epworth, Harare last week on Saturday received honours for excellence in vocational skills and academics at a prize giving ceremony.
By Kennedy Nyavaya
The prizes, which included factory wares and stationery, were handed over at an event that was organised by Precious Stones Foundation, a brainchild of cleric Rutendo Wutawunashe.
Precious Stones representative Rumbidzo Gunduza said the programme was meant to assist financially unstable women acquire life sustaining skills, while their children also attend school on full scholarships.
“Our plan is to reach more communities with low-income backgrounds, targeting women who in most cases are sidelined and forced into immoral means of survival, including prostitution,” Gunduza said.
She said Prophetess Wutawunashe felt compelled to register the trust, which was once under the Family of God church banner so that she could extend a helping hand beyond the confines of the church.
“She saw how most women were selling themselves as prostitutes just for them to get some form of income. She was touched and decided to widen this programme into different communities,” said Gunduza.
“So far, there has been tangible change that you can see from people that are benefitting from these practical teachings of how to be productive using the least resources available.”
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Precious Stones Foundation, which adopted the college, owned by a local resident, runs a similar programme in Domboshava targeted at equipping poor women with life-sustaining socio-economic skills.
Meanwhile, the bulk of primary and secondary level pupils, mostly children of the female beneficiaries, are also benefiting from the full scholarship facilitated by the organisation at the learning centre.
“To a greater extent, we have seen the impact of her [Wutawunashe] coming in because the students she is paying fees for are now attending class consistently without unnecessary absenteeism, which was a huge challenge before,” said school principal Forward Mapiye.
Mapiye added that the scholarship afforded a chance to some students who had failed in the past to try again. He also lauded the feeding programme provided for those under the bursary.
“The feeding programme is helping many children and we no longer see children sleeping during lessons as before and we are very certain this will create positive academic results at our school,” he said.
