Greetings everyone, and a Happy New Year for 2023 from all of us here at Friends of Pakati…namely:
Chris Walker, Stuart Pine, Bothwell Riside, Lorraine Mapuranga, Debbie Chadbon, Bradley Mell and Roj Rahman. We also include the Heads of the two Pakati schools – Mugove Chifaka (Secondary) and Ambrose Mahachi (Primary).
So let us look back on 2022…in a different way than normal this time. I didn’t want to just repeat what we have done before. I thought I would cover issues, rather than chronology, and after looking at the posts during 2022, here are the results:
Fundraising
Consultancy
Two obituaries
New…
Podcasts
School visits
Fundraising.
We had two main fundraising events in 2022 – ‘Get Tied Up for Pakati’, and ‘An Evening With…’
Read all about it here – https://friendsofpakati.com/2022/04/24/funds-raised-as-we-got-tied-up-for-pakati/ – which raised over £1100 for us. There is a page showing other photos from the event – https://friendsofpakati.com/gallery-get-tied-up-for-pakati/
Our second Fundraiser earned us over £400, even though attendance was not as strong as we had hoped for. We sold tickets, got sponsorship, were donated items to raffle, and sold some of our own merchandise, as well as had a great guest speaker – Neil Cox – and some wonderful live music from E.V.I.E.
Find out more here – https://friendsofpakati.com/2022/07/10/friends-of-pakati-change-of-focusplus-latest-news/
Consultancy
Friends of Pakati approached a local University – Huddersfield – to get some help/advice on marketing & our online presence. Thanks to their efforts we are working on our website & social media in the background.
This is one of the items mentioned in the post https://friendsofpakati.com/2022/08/07/new-donations/ but it also was given to us in a presentation in September, just before I visited Zimbabwe.
Two obituaries
Friends of Pakati have been affected by two deaths in particular this year, and I am glad I have been able to pay tribute to them both here on the blog.
First, my old friend from the Pakati area, Thomas Gombera. I was lucky enough to see him on my previous visit to the area in 2019. Find out about him here – https://friendsofpakati.com/2022/03/17/in-memory-of-my-friend-thomas-gombera/
Secondly, and far more recently, my own father, and at 92 he has had a good long life. Read more about him here – https://friendsofpakati.com/2022/12/24/merry-christmas-and-other-issues/ – the funeral is to be in January.
New…
2022 has seen some new people get involved more closely with Friends of Pakati. Most notable among them are Roj Rahman and Bradley Mell. Both of them I got to know through our mutual love of Scunthorpe United.
Roj has been very generous in supporting Friends of Pakati, including sponsoring our fundraising event ‘An Evening With..’ which was also hosted by Bradley. Brad has become increasingly involved with us, most effectively with a new series of videos and Podcasts, our next subject.
Podcasts
Something I had not considered were podcasts, though I am familiar with them thanks to Brad & his involvement with the Iron Bru podcasts for fans of Scunthorpe United. All of our own podcasts can be found here – https://friendsofpakati.com/friends-of-pakati-podcasts/ – we also recorded some video interviews.
And finally, the highlight of the year for Friends of Pakati…
School visits
In late September I returned to Zimbabwe for the first time since the Covid pandemic hit in early 2020. One of the Friends of Pakati team hosted me in 2019 – Bothwell Riside – and this time it was my pleasure to stay with Lorraine Mapuranga, my former student from 1990, in her village of Chidawaya some few kilometres from Pakati schools.
We visited all five schools in Ward 14, Murewa District, and delivered Chromebooks, t-shirts, and football shirts. At every school we were warmly welcomed, fed and entertained. The story of the visit is told in the 4 blogs below:
https://friendsofpakati.com/2022/10/05/pakati-visit-2022-day-1-of-a-memorable-week/
https://friendsofpakati.com/2022/10/07/pakati-visit-2022-day-2-around-both-pakati-schools/
https://friendsofpakati.com/2022/10/09/pakati-visit-2022-day-3-big-celebrations/
https://friendsofpakati.com/2022/10/11/pakati-visit-2022-days-4-5-other-ward-14-schools/
HAPPY NEW YEAR EVERYONE from FRIENDS OF PAKATI !!
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