I thought in this lockdown time with so little happening I thought you might like a few photos of the young people you are supporting. There is not a lot of news. Like us they are in lockdown. We have 17 in the house in Harare and our trustee Dr Tumushine has set up a secure quarantine area along with our student Doctor Kundai. You see Kundai in the first photo cooking meat at a bar-B-queue (we call it a braai) along with Tinashe.

The second photo is of some of the young people in that house, all full of energy and life. They are great fun. Tariro, the tall girl on the right had in fact just got married and in January had her first baby, a girl. We now have six “grandchildren” from that house, all with properly married parents.

The rural kids are all at their homes, which is not good as their homes are very poor. We try to make sure they get enough to eat but they, and we, are longing to go back to school which is a much better environment for them even with Covid 19 around. The young people here are all in Chipinge along with their priest Fr Benjamin and one of the mothers.

These two are also in Chipinge. Ruvarashe is now in primary school and as you can see is quite a little ‘madam’. Her older sister Brenda is lovely, just started an IT course at Mutare polytechnic.

And finally two boys – Tinashe and Joram. They are brothers and live in Shurugwi. They come from a very poor home, rather abusive grandparents I fear but we manage to give them something to smile about in their tough lives.

Covid-19 does not yet seem to have made a big impact on Zimbabwe. We hope that remains true for all sorts of obvious reasons but particularly since medical resources are so limited. I am pretty confident our youngsters are as safe as they can be. I just don’t want their education interrupted. It is too important to them. Do please remember these kids and the other 40 we support. I hope to write to you all again quite soon.

With all good wishes and thanks for everything.

Nicolas CR