Friends of Hlekweni (FoH) (see http://friendsofhlekweni.org.uk) supports education, training, and peacebuilding in southern Matabeleland, Zimbabwe. We continue a longstanding concern of Friends in Britain Yearly Meeting and Southern Africa YM, which Oxford Meeting has supported for many years. Trustees are in close touch with our partners.

Some F/friends may have noted the recent announcement of the Trustees to close the charity in right ordering.

Friends of Hlekweni remains committed to full operational work in 2021; indeed, we have made very significant additional grants to each of the schools supported and to the Peace building work as well as sending out several large boxes of resources. For example – we have bought over 300 individual desks/chairs, and textbooks for all the final year primary students. We are working with one school on the building of a simple teacher accommodation block.

We want to celebrate the generosity of F/friends over the years by ensuring that there will be final grants to enable core work to carry on in 2022.

Please continue the June appeal! Indeed, we are encouraging Meetings, Trusts and individual F/friends to consider their own way of donating to mark their link with Friends of Hlekweni.

We will be communicating further over this year about our work, and to let people know about organisations with similar objectives and values if they wish to continue donating to work in Zimbabwe.

Friends of Hlekweni has stepped up to support emergency COVID-19 needs for our partner schools and projects. Schools are reopening but facing even more issues about overcrowding, sanitation, and lack of textbooks and e-resources.

An exciting development is the project for a Zimbabwe-based Peace Club manual. And Alternative to Violence Projects Zimbabwe are continuing to run many courses, focussed on groups they have identified.

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Forty-Three Newsletter • Number 506 • June 2021
Oxford Friends Meeting
43 St Giles, Oxford OX1 3LW

newsletter@oxfordquakers.org