I am aware many people have enjoyed reading the journey of Lorraine Machingura, one of our Zimbabwean teachers at One Way Pre School. Before I write anything else I would like to pass on her thanks to all who donate because her education is paid for by you wonderful people!

I wanted to write this blog as I wanted to inform you all about Lorraine’s next venture that she wants to achieve. To remind you all, Lorraine grew up in a rural area of Zimbabwe called Zvimba which is around 2 hours drive from Harare. She lived with her grandmother from a young age due to the death of both her parents before turning 12 years old.

The following is what Lorraine has written for us to share:

Life was not easy for us because me and my sister did not have birth certificates and my grandmother was not working, so for her to pay for food for the family and school fees was a great difficulty. In my Grandmothers family there were 6 with 4 passing away and one left who is HIV positive and me so we all grew up with a big struggle to pay for school fees. In the holiday’s when others would play I would work to get fees for next term.

Growing up in this situation made me strong and I understood the lives of orphans and the less privileged so I feel I really want to help others as much as I can. Especially the kids, just to give them love or that motherly care that most guardians can’t give for different reasons. I love children and it’s my passion, they give me joy and peace in my heart and I’d love to see them achieving some things in their life they would not otherwise achieve.

It is my dream to see kids who are orphans getting the sense of family again when they will be thinking that there will be no one to turn to. I understand their relatives will be there but they will always be full of their own problems and some of them can be abusive to the ones left behind.

Please, I am appealing to you to support me with my dream of opening an orphanage in Isaroi district a few hours out of Harare. I chose this area because there are a few orphanages in the city of Harare but there are few in this area so therefore there are many children in need of real help and assistance. Also most of the people in this area don’t see the importance of letting the children go to school. It is not seen as a priority for these orphans to go to school. My intention is to buy the land and build the orphanage in the name of my four daughters so I can leave them with something so they can have an easier life than I had. I want them to have no barriers to what they can achieve and to grow up to help those less fortunate.

I want to thank-you for reading my dream and I thank you in advance for your support and prayers. Without the help of all of you my education would not have happened and I would never have dreamt so big because I only live in a small wooden house where the only place for my kids to sit or play is their bed. As you can imagine this gets even more difficult when the rains come.

May God Bless whatever you are doing now in Jesus’ name! Amen!

I hope you enjoyed Lorraine’s dream but to make this dream a reality she needs money, clothes, blankets, books, toys and school resources. The land needs buying and the orphanage needs building but she really believes that this will happen one day and I bet there are people reading this who would love to help her and her family in some way. If you would like to help her you can donate financially through PayPal and just mark it as ‘for the orphanage’ and we will save them for her. If you would like to donate goods then please do so and hopefully we can bring them back with us in September or ship them out. Please e.mail us for more information if you can.