Our mentor, Daniel Buttry taught us to think outside the box. This is an experiential learning tool in our conflict transformation training tool box. There is always a way only if one thinks outside the box. We have been effectively practicing this for years. As we are maturing as peace practitioners in our context, we are telling groups to think without the box.

Zimbabwe has been under COVID 19 national lockdown from January to March 2021. Schools were reopened on March 22. We thank God for the provision of the “Student Education Tuition Program” (STEP) Children of Peace Africa Project. We paid school fees for 40 students and gave them masks and other PPEs. They started school with happy faces.

Schools opened when everyone was living in a state of hopelessness. Most people couldn’t afford to eat proper meals let alone pay children’s school fees. They couldn’t look outside the box as the box is not even available to them. We suffer from triple giants of COVID 19, unemployment and poverty. Most people have never seen the “box”. Asking them to think outside the box is like asking a blind man to judge a beauty contest.

TOP Africa team realized this and started thinking without the box. We saw that in as much as children are assisted with school fees they also need food. They come from hungry families. We therefore mobilized local resources and identified the most vulnerable households. This month (March) we distributed food for 100 households. The hampers comprised mealie meal (a porridge mix, like cornmeal), cooking oil, sugar, flour and dry beans.

This program wouldn’t have been possible if you were not complementing the STEP Children of Peace Africa Project. Thank you for your support.

Apostle James reminds us that

“Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world.” (James 1:27, NIV)

Christina and Lance