5 News Items!

Welcome to our latest blog!  We think we have some interesting things to tell you & show you this week, so without further ado, here goes!

Donations of goods appreciated

Head of Pakati Primary school, Mr Mahachi, has just sent me the first photos of our recent donations being tried out…

Mr Mahachi in his office trying out his new Chromebook, one of a handful recently donated to Friends of Pakati by Oasis Parkwood Academy, a Primary school in Scunthorpe

Friend of Pakati Bradley Mell presents the donation from Oasis Parkwood Academy, courtesy of his mother who works there!

Along with the Chromebooks from the school, we were given some t-shirts by Scunthorpe United Football Club they found hidden in a cupboard!

Chanetsa Primary seen accepting thier donations

The t-shirts came in a box with 75 items in, mixture of Large, Medium and Small sizes. We gave 15 of them to each of the 5 schools we visited in late September.

We have received photos from two of the schools of the t-shirts being tired out on students, first at Pakati Primary, and from Mr Mawedze at Chanetsa Secondary school:

Pakati Primary students display their t-shirts

Chelanetsa Primary school were happy to show their donations

Friends of Pakati future

Plans are being made for discussions between ourselves about key issues for our future plans. Many of those involved can be seen on our recent blog https://friendsofpakati.com/2022/10/29/who-are-we-find-out-about-us/

We are going to talk about our vision, objectives for 2023, our online presence, fundraising, merchandise, and plans to visit Pakati in 2023

Once our zoom meeting has taken place we will publish a report of what is agreed, then put it to the Heads & other interested parties so we are together with our plans for the coming year.

Time out

In early December, Friends of Pakati is going to take a break from its regular updates. This will allow us to make any changes deemed necessary from our meetings. Hopefully we will return quickly with noticable improvements to what we do.

Podcasts

Coming soon are the two podcasts recorded with Pauline Machengo as we interviewed each other!

Pauline Machengo, former student at Pakati Primary school

Pauline is including herself interviewing me as part of a longer piece, but we have agreed to post them both here at Friends of Pakati. Both are currently being edited in preparation for publishing, hopefully next weekend.

Catch up on all our podcasts here: https://friendsofpakati.com/friends-of-pakati-podcasts/

We also have a number of other interviews recorded with people at Pakati Secondary school, including the Head Mr Chifaka, a couple of teachers and a couple of students. I am waiting for the OK from the school to publish them.

The Author talks to one of the staff at Pakati Secondary school

What’s this all about…?

Soon we will be announcing an interesting arrival for Friends of Pakati…keep watching this space!

After the successful trip to Zimbabwe in September/October, we need to keep things moving, changing & adapting, looking forward to next year and hopefully progress from our combined efforts.

 

 

Author:

My name is Chris Walker, and between January 1989 and September 1991 I worked, through VSO (Voluntary Service Overseas), at Pakati Secondary School in Murehwa South district in Zimbabwe. I was a Maths teacher for 2 years, the Acting Head for the last 8 months there. I have also taught in Botswana & the UK, had 4 years working for VSO, and have been a Civil Servant in Bradford since 2005.

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