The Sunday Mail
Fatima Bulla
THE Holy Bible’s quote that ‘do not despise the days of humble beginnings’ is true for a local pastor whose work began from feeding street children to becoming a pacesetter in establishing an Albinism Clinic in Zimbabwe.
When Pastor Esther Chasi — the founder of Global Aid Missions decided to go on the streets of Harare with two pots of food to feed people living in the streets back in 2007, little did she know it would eventually birth the first one-stop clinic for people living with albinism.
While there are centres dedicated to cancer and autism among other conditions, there was no institutions specifically to cater for albinism.
However, as fate would have it, in March last year Pastor Chasi and her husband founded the first Albinism clinic in Harare where people with the condition acquire services for 15 RTGs dollars.
Apart from medical services that include dermatology, oncology, opticals, the Albinism Clinic is an initiative meant to provide other related services such as psycho-social support.
The clinic, which consists of a reception area, ophthalmology centre, waiting, doctors and treatment room is operating with the assistance of voluntary professionals.
With general consultation services provided, there is a full time general practitioner doctor and nursing sisters to provide close to free treatment.
The birth of this clinic goes back to the day when Pastor Chasi realised it was not enough to just preach the gospel but to touch people’s lives practically.
One evening, as she was expecting her second child, she teamed up with her husband and drove to Angwa Street as usual with two pots of food looking for people living on the streets to feed.
“That night did something to me. I really felt I could be a mother to so many people. Then someone said to me why not register a trust because you are already doing NGO work. That birthed Global Aid Missions,” Pastor Chasi said.
With Global Aid Missions fully operational — some organisations partnered Pastor Chasi who is also a co-minister of Centre of Worship Church — in projects of donating books to schools, sanitary pads, soaps and medical supplies.
As she pursued her studies in the United States, she began to get boxes of sunscreen lotions within the huge medical consignments donated from overseas.
Thinking her project had no need for the sunscreen lotions, she just stuffed the boxes in her house. Little did she know her third child would be born with albinism.
“So when I had my third child with albinism and still learning about the condition; I had already forgotten about the donated boxes of sunscreen lotions,” she said.
When her child turned six months, she met a man with albinism at a traffic light who begged for money to buy sunscreen lotions.
That’s when something struck her to recall about the sunscreen lotions stuck at her house. From then on she began to gather details of people with albinism and donating sunscreen lotions until it became a fully-fledged project in 2009.
“So the albinism project in 2009 became an official project for Global Aid Missions not because of my child but because of someone I met on the road,” Pastor Chasi said.
Since 2008 Global Aid Missions working with the Ministry of Health and Child Care has donated medical supplies to hospital and clinics around the country.
From operating only on Saturday through the benevolence of health professionals, the organisation now has its clinic where people walk in daily to be assisted.
“I’m humbled that a little obedience within me has grown this big. For me I don’t take it lightly because it’s God. I feel very humbled that I can carry an answer for somebody on the continent of Africa.”
