It has been a while since I last spoke with her, and we have had a good long catch-up. She continues to donate regularly – please let me know if you can also do that – and clearly intends to do so for the foreseeable future.
We discussed what Friends of Pakati have been doing, which she was delighted to keep up with as we delivered the 20 computers to Pakati schools in 2024. She asked about our current plans & I spoke about our fundraising need for power & wi-fi this year.
Sharlom also talked about her own plans, as she is starting up her own project – this will be what the next blog will be about. It is very likely we will have a podcast/vlog to add to our growing collection too!
So please keep an eye out over the coming weekend…
The school has a regular donation of porridge to provide for all students. Local parents often volunteer to cook & dispense the porridge.
Volunteers who came for porridge cooking
Students back in class seem keen to learn, something that is very noticeable every time I have visited the school.
The students take a break during lunchtimes, and some may go home if they live nearby. Most stay in the school grounds, as you can see below:
We at Friends of Pakati are striving to raise the funds we need to help both Pakati schools, to get them connected to power supplies & to the internet.
We really appreciate anything you can do to support our efforts – donations, sponsorship, buying merchandise, liking & sharing across social media platforms – so please do keep it up!
Greetings everyone! Welcome to the second blog of 2025.
As we now have some targets to meet, I thought it best to update you on the state of our finances. I have created a new Page where this information will continue to be updated on a regular basis, see current details below:
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Back in September 2024, Friends of Pakati used up all its resources, including donations, but it was not enough. In order to make sure the IT was sent to Zimbabwe, the Author had to top up the funds.
So we started again from £0.00 on 30/09/2024.
Since then, we have had the following donations & running totals:
02/01/2025. £10.00. £111.28
02/01/2025. £37.20 £101.28
02/01/2025 £10.00. £64.08
02/12/2024. £10.00. £54.08
01/11/2024. £10.00. £44.08
07/10/2024. £14.08. £34.08
01/10/2024. £10.00. £20.00
01/10/2024. £10.00. £10.00
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What delights me has been the immediate responses to our efforts to fundraise towards our targets for this year:
The first is to get power to the two Pakati schools, at a cost of £785/US$1000
The second is to get Wi-fi to both Pakati schools, at a cost of £846/US$1078
So a huge THANK YOU to those who have donated already towards the total showing above in our bank account.
Friends of Pakati is going to be more active this year, so please do get involved with us, support us, follow us, and share our output on social media to help spread the word! Thank you 👏👏👏
Greetings everyone, and let us wish you all a very Happy New Year!!
Today we release the 3rd podcast in the series of 3. Each one is just a part of the blog post it is part of.
Podcast host Bradley Mell & myself can be heard discussing a number of things, including the immediate priorities for Friends of Pakati in 2025
Brad & Chris in 2022
Following what for me personally was a successful 2024, I am looking forward very much to next year! Friends of Pakati have had an upturn in fortunes due to the second half of the year, when we took 20 computers to Pakati.
2024 over 30% improvement on 2023
We have had praise from the local councillor for Ward 14 after our visit in October, Mr Njenje sent me this message just a couple of days ago:
Councillor Njenje, 3rd from the left holding a monitor, as I handed over a computer to the Schools
“My humble greatful thanks to Friends of Pakati with all that support you are giving to the entire community, all the efforts you are making its a calling….. I thank you once more… 2024 was a challenging year but you made it worthwhile by giving us computers. Hoping that 2025 will be smoother for everyone!🙏🏾🙏🏾”
Behind the scenes, we have a number of things being planned, including individual events with a surprise or two 🫰 plus some Iron-related items. We have hopefully something lined up in mid January – details available when we get things in place.
We are approaching a number of people for help/support/sponsorship too, so keep looking out for what happens!
There are going to be some changes on the website, particularly the pages, as we need to update things a bit. Also, our social media presence will be expanded as we seek to attract more visitors & views to the website.
As a result of the above, we are looking for new guests to appear on our podcasts & vlogs. Former staff or students of Pakati, people who have donated to Friends of Pakati, or have helped us in some way, even those who are interested in what we do – please let us know if you would like to appear.
So, for us here at Friends of Pakati, there is much to do & look forward to this new year of 2025. Let’s get started!
Well, this is an unusual departure for Friends of Pakati…. but I did think it was an interesting idea. We may do other different things in the future too!
Bradley Mell, our podcast host, suggested we discuss the TV programme Grand Tour who visited Zimbabwe in 2023. They recorded what is their final ‘special’ called ‘One for the Road’.
Apparently, the presenters – Jeremy Clarkson, Richard Hammond & James May – had wanted to go to Zimbabwe for many years but were unable to. The negotiations to get permission to film will have been detailed, as it will have included some of the stunts they did during the recording.
As you listen to the podcast, below are some of the photos I took of the TV screen during the programme, with information about each photo.
The road through the tea-growing area of the Honde Valley, one of many scenery changes mentioned during the broadcastClarkson & May arrive into HarareThe amazing dancing traffic policeman in HarareThe huge marketplace known as Mbare Musikawhere Clarkson & May found the exact exhaust needed by HammondMay, Hammond & Clarkson enjoy the beautiful Jacaranda trees during their drive through HarareFabulous view at Mana Pools National Park as the sun goes downHammond drifting at Mana Pools close to the ZambeziPart of the road to Kariba town &Lake KaribaThe Grand Tour presenters stayed at the internationally famous Victoria Falls Hotel The 3 have their cars on the rail tracks on the Victoria Falls Bridge between Zambia & ZimbabweJust a small part of the genuinely awesome Victoria Falls Finally, as they head towards the Botswana border, they appear to be driving through partsof, or close to Hwange NationalPark
A very enjoyable programme for me, recognising many elements of the journey they made across the country as places I have been to.
Coming next: Part 3 of 3
The final blog & podcast of 2024 is all about Friends of Pakati in the coming months, trying to raise funds for the schools to be able to make the most of our IT donations in October. If you can, please donate here:
Hello Everyone – A warm welcome to the Friends of Pakati Review of 2024!
Friends of Pakati at the Iron Open Day in July 2024, l to r:Jane, Brad, Chris, Brian & Simon
Well, 2024 has been what sports teams often call ‘a game of two halves’! The first 6 months had quite a few interesting elements to it, as you can read about here…
… but it was definitely much better in the second half of the year. Our statistics at the end of June showed we were heading for a lower number of views than even 2023, our lowest so far since we started. How things have changed since then!
What really made the difference was our stall at the Scunthorpe United off-season event – the Iron Open Day. Our stall (see the photo at the top of this post) at the event turned out initially as a decent fundraiser, netting us £160. Read all about it here:
Unbeknownst to us, one of the visitors to our stall was one of our fellow Iron fans, Sarah Dent. She contacted me, and went on to say she might be able to help with some computers for Pakati…
As I was planning to go to Pakati in October, Sarah’s intervention made us speed things up so that we could deliver new IT to the two schools.
I went to see the company Sarah works for & met some of her colleagues who were involved with the promised IT. Have a read here & find out what happened:
This led to a speeding up of certain things, as we had a deadline to meet – my upcoming trip to Zimbabwe. We needed to get the promised IT checked out, packaged up & sent to the shippers, called Coedma Freight International Ltd baeed in Leicester.
From there, we got the IT donated to Zimbabwe, and delivered it to Pakati schools. Below are a number of posts which take us through the process, and how it all went:
There are further posts about IT lessons, Primary students visiting Robert Mugabe International Airport, my own images & videos, and the sad loss of our friend Pastor Aggie Fombo recently.
Hi everyone! Coming out over Christmas & New Year is another 3-part series. This time it will be a mixture of a blog with a podcast about it embedded in it.
Part 1
Iron Open Day – our srall getting a visit from Ian Sharp, board member at Scunthorpe United
This will be a review of the year 2024 with its ups & downs.
Part 2
Who might this be in Harare…?
This will be a discussion about a TV program which visited Zimbabwe in 2023.
Part 3
Some of the students who stand to benefit from our efforts in the future
This will be looking forward to 2025 & what Friends of Pakati are planning to do.
A short note
This coming year will be our 7th year of existence, having been officially begun on 16th January, 2019. The staistics for views on our website show how 2024 has been an improvement on our lowest year, 2023
It is encouraging to me to see the upturn this year, & I hope we can do even better in 2025!
This morning I was informed of some very sad news. One of our long-time supporters, Reverend Agatha Joramu Fombo – Pastor Aggie Fombo – has passed away. Apparently, she had been in declining health over recent months and had also lost her husband just a few months before.
During my visit to Zimbabwe in October, I had hoped to meet up with Aggie to pass my condolences in person. Sadly, it never happened. It appears she had been in hospital in September, and so was not well enough to visit.
Rest in Peace, Rev Aggie.
So I never actually met with her, and the closest I came was when we recorded her podcast along with our regular host, Bradley Mell. I recall really enjoying the recording, Aggie came across with much humanity & humbleness, and I have to say, with the sheer joy of living. She laughed a lot & it was infective. You can hear it all in the podcast in the last post at the foot of this blog.
To me, she lived her beliefs to the full, working among and for the underprivileged in her community, in and around the city of Mutare.
Below are links to her contributions to this blog, 3 separate posts, and a wonderful podcast!
Hello Everyone, and welcome back to Friends of Pakati!
Pakati schools on Google Maps
What we are discussing today is our key targets for the immediate future. These revolve around the two main issues arising from our most successful visit to the schools so far, in October, when we delivered 20 PC’s plus monitors, keyboards, mice, multi-plugs, & all relevant cables.
Pakati Secondary school IT Suite 2024
To find out more what we did, please visit these links to previous coverage:
The two important issues to come from the donations are: 1) Power, and 2) Wi-fi
Power
The issue with power is down to the supply of electricity to the school buildings, at both Pakati schools.
Currently, there is very limited power from the solar supply due to the age of most of the equipment at the Secondary school, and to replace it would cost US$1000’s, although the batteries are relatively new. There is power for the teachers’ houses on both sites from the national supplier, ZESA, but that does not connect to the main school buildings themselves at either school yet.
Photo of the Secondary school Solar supply taken in 2022
Recently I was informed the, in order to use the new computers in the IT Suite at the Secondary school took some lengths of extension cables, to run the power from one of the teachers houses to the Suite.
According to a local electrician, to connect the buildings will cost US$500 for each school, so that is our first target.
Wi-fi
The donation of enough computers to have an IT teacher allocated to each school means they will be in a position to learn more than just the installed free Open Office applications, and they need access to the internet to really get the full benefit from the new IT.
There are many ways the internet can help their education (at both schools) with things like lesson planning for the teachers, research for staff and students, meeting the curriculum requirements set by the government’s Ministry of Education, not to mention being linked to the rest of the world!
The most likely source of Wi-Fi is via Starlink, with a few options available. There are 2 levels of kit, the Mini, and the Standard. There are 2 ways of acquiring the kits, one direct from Starlink & one though a local approved dealer, then there are also 2 levels of speed to subscribe to at different monthly rates.
So the most likely set up for both schools individually is as follows:
Standard Kit, via the approved local dealer, at 300Mbps with unlimited data. The total for each school would be US$539 to set up + US$50 per month subscription.
The schools have both said they can manage the monthly subscription of US£50 This will be our second target.
With internet access, the schools may be able to raise by offering use of the computers, IT lessons & access to wifi to the local community
TOTALS:
Power for both Pakati schools. US$1000 – £785 Wi-fi installation at both schools. US$1078 – £846 ———– Total to raise: US£2078 – £1631
(These figures are at current exchange rates as of 08/11/2024 from http://www.xe.com)
Pakati Schools Signboard
Friends of Pakati will obviously be looking to raise as much money as possible in the coming weeks and months, well into 2025.
The Author meeting with students at Pakati Secondary school in the IT Suite/Library
The time spent at the school involved a handover ceremony, with local dignatories as well as staff & students of both schools plus parents. It also included the actual arrival of the recently donated IT, which arrived a day later than hoped for. These images are a mixture from the two days, Tuesday & Wednesday 8th & 9th October.
On the toad to PakatiA brief stop on the wayAt Taluu Store near PakatiMrs Munatswa, teacherat Pakati SecondaryWith Mr Chadenga, Maths teacher, at the new water tank for the teachers housesat Pakati Secondary
The students speaking at the event are from Pakati Primary school, and the dancees are from the Secondary school.
