Vila orphan care
Key Facts:
Project Name: Vila Maninga orphan care
Programme: Serve
Partner organisation: Vila Maninga/ Maranatha Ministries International
Location: Chimoio region, central Mozambique
Key contact: Frikkie and Juanita De Jager, Elizabeth Thomas, Pastor Clever Gama
Support provided: Funding and practical assistance to support the care of 19 orphaned children at Vila Maninga in a foster-family structure, providing homely, Christian family care and education
Project since: January 2006
Summary:
“Vila Maninga” itself roughly means “Refuge village” translated from a Portuguese and Shona combination, and at the core of the small, Christian, rural community is the care and love for orphaned children. Adopted into a family village are almost 20 Mozambican children from the local areas, that are cared and loved for as the parents’ own children. The children experience a wonderful community and all the elements of the family life they lost – housing, food, clothing, love, care, brothers and sisters, as well as access to education at Vila’s school. JMT has been supporting the continuation and growth of the orphan care work, providing financial and practical help and friendship ever since Jennie and Nick Marsh lived here in 2004.
Nick with Eliseu and orphan family A new arrival at orphan village in 2006
Detail and background:
The inspirations behind Vila Maninga are, above all, Frikkie and Juanita De Jager; Zimbabweans working for the church in eastern Zimbabwe and into Mozambique for 30 years or more. Amongst their work in the Eastern Highlands of Zimbabwe, they founded a home for orphaned children called Maninga Village – named after the local Shona word for ‘a place of refuge’. Throughout the Mozambican civil war that raged for 17 years, they had done missions in to the central region and brought church leaders across to Zimbabwe for training. When the war was finishing in the early 1990’s, the Mozambique government, realising the huge orphan problem they faced, recognised the De Jagers’ success in establishing homes in Zimbabwe, as well as their relationships in Mozambique. They asked the De Jagers to come and set up a home, giving them a large farm about 30 kilometres outside the town of Chimoio, towards the Zimbabwean border…. And so “Vila” Maninga was born in 1992.
The project began with two key men supporting them – Pastor Chiminya and Eliseu. They have been committed and loyal developers of Vila Maninga, despite spending the early months sleeping under the trees whilst they built and established Vila. They both still live at the project, though Chiminya is now retired, and Eliseu remains the ‘father’ of all the orphan children and part of the management team.
The project has since developed over time to care for elderly people, building a primary school for all the children to attend, developing a farm to provide for the project, and building a Bible college focused on educating and training pastors from the rural parts of Mozambique. At its core though, has remained the orphan care work of Eliseu and his wife, caring and providing for now 19 orphaned children on top of their own 4 children!
Foster parents Eliseu and his wife Orphan village at Vila (before the fire!)
The orphan ‘village’ is organised with a central, large cooking and dining hut, surrounded by 6 bedroom huts and 2 shower huts; there are then long-drop toilets and food store rooms built behind. The huts have been upgraded over the years to be brick (made on-site!) with concrete floors and thatched rooms (now recently changed to concrete following devastating fire in Sept 2006). Each bedroom has between 2 and 4 children – either girls or boys – and now have bunk beds for each child. The children all eat together with Eliseu and Mae Eliseu each evening together – the children all having chores and tasks that contribute to the running of the project. Eliseu is an incredible man, who’s influence and role extends across the project, and from the early hours of daylight till late at night, you’ll always find him doing something – building, painting, farming, running errands to town, playing football or doing the cooking or any other of a 1,000 tasks!
With a long-term desire to see these children not only cared for, but well-equipped and provided for, Vila Maninga built its own primary school to provide schooling for the orphans, the Bible college student children and hundreds of local children from the surrounding bush and villages; it is now a very successful little school, with over 500 children attending for either mornings or afternoons! The football pitch at the back of Vila is also scene to many energetic and fiercely competed matches.
The children range in ages from just 2 years old to the eldest at 19, and come from all kinds of situations and backgrounds. A ‘momentous’ occasion this year has been the employment of Adelino at Vila as an assistant in building, painting and handy-work. Adelino (now 19) was the very first orphan at Vila Maninga, and he has grown-up and developed at the project, having been successfully through primary school there despite only starting at around 12 years old. He has always shown a keen interest in handy-work, carpentry and practical skills, assisting and learning from Fred de Jager over the years, and is now well skilled as an apprentice – a great success story.
Children's bedrooms with bunk beds Main dining and kitchen hut where all eat together
Vila Maninga is a run as an integrated project, including the bible college, the orphan and elderly care, the primary school, as well as the support and provision for all the staff and individuals in the form of the farming and the newly developing timber plantation.
Many of the costs – employing staff, running the generator, building/maintenance work, buying food where necessary and running the farm to grow as much food as possible – provide for all areas of the project. Further, Mozambique is still largely a subsistence economy, and this applies to many of the staff and people in the project, so whilst salaries aren’t substantial at all, providing food, clothes, housing, access to school and materials are all essential elements of keeping Vila going, with its wonderful set of dedicated staff.
The whole project is mostly funded from external fundraising and support; the Mozambican church and communities are still not developed to the point of supporting the project financially, and certainly no Bible student could afford to pay any fees to attend, for example. However, they do support with in-kind donations of food and clothes at times. Overall, the project running costs are in the region of £20-25,000 per annum to cover everything, but that excludes any further development or major project work. Much of that funding comes through the UK-based charity Vila Maninga, established by friends of Vila, and other donor organisations, as well as churches and friends in South Africa.
To help identify the areas for growth and focus, JMT works with the Vila on the specific needs and areas of work and what resources are required for each part. In this way, they can identify that an estimation as to the current cost of supporting Eliseu, his wife and the orphan village is the region of £5-8,000 per year, remembering that in-kind donations of clothes, provisions and equipment, as well as teams helping with building and practical work can help to reduce hard financial needs.
In 2007, JMT supported Vila with £2,000 (excluding the special appeal linked to the rebuilding after the fire which amounted to more than £4,000 additional – see below). In addition, JMT has been involved in helping with practical support – teams and individuals visiting to help, as well as donations of clothes and sports equipment. Over the past year and half, the number of cared orphans has grown from around 14 to 19 (in addition to the family’s own children) and this has been made possible, in part, by JMT’s support.
Governance and feedback:
Vila Maninga as a project is now a ministry and project of the AFM (Apostolic Faith Mission) church in Mozambique, having been placed under the local church to ensure both ownership by them and accountability and longevity in the role of the project in providing training and care.
However, since the financial support of the project comes primarily from external sources, this is controlled and governed through the UK-based charity (Vila Maninga) and then through a South African charity (Maranatha Ministries International) the De Jagers have established to collect funds. The De Jagers then administer a monthly budget to the project director (Pastor Clever Gama) and the management team (including Eliseu) to utilise for the running of the project. All the accounts are carefully kept, and JMT is given full visibility of these – not just where our money goes, but all the money since we are viewed as such an integral part of the ‘team’ at Vila.
JMT’s relationship with Vila is deep and longer than JMT’s own existence – beginning with when Jennie and Nick lived and worked there in 2004. Since then, the two organisations and individuals involved have been in very close contact and have worked closely on the plans and vision for Vila and how to develop and achieve them.
JMT gets regular feedback from the De Jagers and Elizabeth Thomas on all elements of its support for Vila. On top of which, JMT teams and representatives have visited extensively over the last two years to see the work in action, for example:
June 2006: Andrew Marsh, kate & Julian Read visit with Nick Marsh
July/August 2006: Nick Marsh spends one month based at Vila, working to develop plans
May 2007: Ian and Nick Marsh visit to get update on rebuilding and plantation
Latest updates:
Following the devastating bush fire in September 2006 (see news article on the fire: Nov 2006 - Report on Vila fire), in which thankfully no-one was hurt, but the entire orphan village and the homes of the elderly people were destroyed, there has been wonderful progress in rebuilding! All of the people have been housed in the Bible College village (college had to be suspended till rebuilding is finished).
JMT’s New Year 2007 appeal for helping to finance the rebuilding was an amazing success – the generosity of supporters raised well over £4,000 towards the costs, on top of JMT’s existing financial support.
Ian Marsh and Nick visited in May 2007 and were really encouraged to not only visit everyone and re-kindle old friendships (and meet another two new orphans who have arrived since last year!) but see the progress on rebuilding. Read their full report in the news article – May 2007: Vila visit – but it looks like the village will be ready in a month or two for the children and family to move back in; next job will be the elderly homes!
Links and info:
Vila Maninga has established a UK-based charity, which has a website at www.vila-maninga.org so check it out for more details and updates.
JMT also supports Vila Maninga as a project in a number of other ways, touching on our other programmes:
• Bible college sponsorship – EQUIP
• Developing a timber plantation for economic stability - ENABLE
For more information on Mozambique and background information, we will be listing some good sites and links soon!
Ways to get involved:
Financial support:
As outlined above, excluding the special appeal, JMT has been supporting Vila’s orphan work with £2,000 (note, JMT also supports other elements of Vila’s work).
Your support of any amount can go towards this cost – on average costing around £100 towards the care of each child – and could help us to expand our financial assistance. The more our supporters can commit to a regular amount, the more easily we can commit to on-going levels of support.
The major constraint for Vila’s orphan work is accommodation, and so building further bedrooms and facilities, and putting in place another foster family would allow the work to expand dramatically. This is something we would hope to see happen in the future – do get in touch if this is something you’d particularly be interested in supporting.
Prayer:
• Please do thank God that no one was injured or hurt in the fire, and that the people are still so positive and thankful in the face of such devastation
• Please do pray for the rebuilding work would go smoothly and quickly, and that the orphan family would be back in its home by the end of July
• Please do pray for Eliseu and his wife, on whom so much depends and the pressures are tough – for health, wisdom, energy and godliness.
Visiting/Practical help and work at Vila Maninga:
There are lots of opportunities for practical help at Vila Maninga, and with ever improving transport links and a wonderful newly-upgraded guest area, it gets easier! But.. it is not easy! It is in the bush, in Mozambique, and a long way from most places! But, JMT is planning on organising a team to visit in 2008 (sadly 2007 plans weren’t possible), and if you’d be interested in being involved, then please do get in touch.
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