BY MUNYARADZI BLESSING DOMA
“I decided to give back to the community because I know how it is to be vulnerable, I know how it is to lack, I experienced that when I was young.”
These were the words of Luke Mugobo, the Founder and Executive Director of Chipinge Vulnerable Children Intervention Programme (CVCIP).
Despite the organisation being self-funded, Mugobo believes it is good to provide a helping hand to others in need.
And in their own small way, they have managed to give a cheer to some vulnerable people in Chipinge.
Established in 2008, the organisation has been giving assistance to those in need and they have remained determined.
“My role is to coordinate since the organisation is not yet sponsored. We don’t have donors as of now so my role is to see to it that we stay afloat and we move forward with success.
“The objective of starting this organisation was to help the vulnerable orphans, widows and the youth by aiming to empower them.
“Because the organisation is not yet funded, so far we only give food hampers to 20 old widows and we pay schools fees for only 10 primary school going orphans.
“We started this type of an organisation is order to plough back to the community. This is something that I experienced when I was young, so I thought it is high time we should now plough back to the community,” said Mugobo.
He however acknowledges that it hasn’t been easy, because without a donor or any external funding, it has limited the kind of impact they would want to make.
“Since we started it has been tough, it’s not easy to start and do these things without backing, without sponsors.
“But despite all this, the impact we have made in the community is very positive.
“Those orphans whom we are paying school fees for now have renewed joy, their self-esteem and confidence has really grown and in turn they have greatly improved in their performance.
“The old widows whom we provide with food hampers whenever do; are very appreciative. You can tell that this is going quite a long way in improving their livelihoods.
“And to the young widows and the youth; we give them psycho-social support and they have really been impacted positively because a lot has changed.
“We have positive talks like telling them to shun gender based violence, drug and substance abuse and we strongly encourage them to be self-reliant. If we get funding, we want our young mothers, young widows and the youth to be trained on sustaining projects like detergents making, cosmetology, carpentry, just all income generating projects.”
Mugobo revealed that they are looking for partners so that they can do a lot more to help the less privileged.
“We a properly registered organisation so everything is above board, hence all we do is done professionally. We need likeminded organisations to work with and collaborate on many spheres.
“We need to do exchange programmes and many can reach us on our social media platforms or better still even visit our office in Chipinge and see for themselves the work we are doing.
“We need all the necessary support so that we can do more because ever since we started, it is the management team that is funding the organisation,” said Mugobo.
He also revealed that their future plans involve expanding to other provinces of the country and currently they had been cleared to have an office in Mutoko.
“Our future plans are to make this organisation to be self-sustaining by having educational institutions and we also intend to be an agent for the Tourism Authority so that we advertise the Eastern Highlands and have visitors coming to support us.”
He added that their first exhibition at the just ended Harare Agricultural Show was quite an eye opener as they engaged with a lot of people, as some revealed plans for meaningful engagements for future collaborations.
“Many people were really impressed by our work and they encouraged us to keep working hard because they admired the vision.
“The only challenge we saw was that many people failed to access where we were stationed because of the stairs.
“So I suggest that in future, we will need to be placed where it is more accessible but as a charity organisation we are grateful because we had been given that stand for free.”
He added that they also give an opportunity to students who require attachment, something they believe is also part of giving back to the community.
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