The Sunday Mail
Veronica Gwaze
CHISIPITE Baptist Church will open a vocational training centre in Chishawasha in March to equip Tazorora, Mahachi and Kan’anga squatter camp occupants with life skills.
They will be taught Garment Designing, Construction and Food and Nutrition.
Speaking to The Sunday Mail Society while hosting a luncheon at Tazorora recently, Pastor Victor Chembela said the programmes were free.
“In the past ten years, as a church we have been giving them hand outs and for a day every month we prepare food and take it there to have a special lunch with them.
“Realising ten years is a long time, we as a church then decided we needed to empower them so that they can then depend on their own,” said Pr Chembela.
The cleric said the vocational school will commence with a three-week long training programme spearheaded by 10 trainers led by Pr Will Womble.
Pr Womble is from First Baptist Church in Atlanta, the United States.
“The trainers will be a group of 10 friends and children of former Baptist church missionaries led by Pastor Will Womble and these guys will be coming in from Atlanta specifically for that.
“So far we have started Bible lessons with the camps’ residents because after looking at the type of decadence that is in such places, we saw the need to first make them see God’s purpose in their lives although we do not force them to be converted in our church,” Pr Chembela said.
The cleric said the church has so far procured 18 sewing machines out of a targeted 30, two industrial stoves, sewing accessories and other cookery equipment for the programme.
With at least 400 households living on the camps, demand for resources is huge.
“We will continue to procure more equipment as the program runs because we want to avoid a situation of congestion on the machines. We do not want productivity to be disturbed in the workshop,” said the pastor.
He said products from the school would be sold and the profit shared, with some money channelled towards development of the area to foster healthy living conditions.
Pr Chembela began working with squatters after a request was made by Newlands police officers to pray for the occupants who were being constantly arrested for crimes which included domestic violence.
“At some point I even became a street dweller and so I understand these people’s kind of life. It is that drive that makes me want to see them change for the better
“As a church in future we are targeting at empowering other squatter camps in and around Harare so that they upgrade their lives,” he said.
