When you've lost everything

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Easter Appeal - Zimbabwe's Widows - [742 KB]

Zimbabwe Appeal
'When you've lost everything...

“Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress...” [James 1²⁷]

To lose the person you’ve spent your adult life with is deeply traumatic for anyone, anywhere.

To lose one or all of your children is a horror beyond contemplation.

To become responsible for many grandchildren in your old age, with no way of feeding them, doesn’t bear thinking about.

To be rejected by your wider family and outcast from your community because of the stigma of being a widow...

…how is it possible to keep on living?'

This is the everyday reality for thousands of women in Zimbabwe, and the orphans they care for. Many men have died through violence, AIDS or other disease, leaving their widows in deep sadness, difficulty and distress.

WorldShare’s partner ‘Hope for Africa’ is serving widows throughout Zimbabwe. The first need is to show them again that they are people loved by God; that they are valued; that they are special people. Restoring self-worth and replacing despair with hope is the very first task.

Then come practical needs: very many widows and orphans right across the country are quite literally starving to death. They have no income and no means of buying the little food which is available. Because of economic collapse, jobs are very hard to find. Malnutrition opens the door to many diseases.

We need to supply consignments of food totalling 50 tons to several areas immediately, to avert disaster.

WorldShare director Dr. Hannah Clark (right of photo) recently visited Zimbabwe, where she witnessed the desperate plight of widows and saw how Hope for Africa cares for these ladies

Food to keep a widow and the orphans in her care alive for 2 weeks costs just £9.

In Chitungwiza, our partners are trying to build a flagship Widows’ Centre, which will serve as a pattern for others across Zimbabwe. There the widows will be able to find emergency help of all kinds in times of crisis. There will also be meetings where widows can share their experience and support each other.

The centre will provide medical help and emergency accommodation for widows and orphans who are in danger.

The centre will include lots of vocational and income-generation training, helping widows to set up small businesses which will keep them alive and give them resources to share.

But most of all the centre will be a place of renewal, refreshment and hope.

To buy the land and build the centre, we urgently need to raise £50,000. That’s a great deal of money, but your gift of any size will help.

This Easter, will you take Zimbabwe’s widows and orphans on your heart, as they are on God’s and help us to help them?

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OTHER WAYS TO GIVE

BY POST— CHEQUE/CHARITY VOUCHERS: Please make cheque/voucher payable to ‘WorldShare’. Add ‘Zimbabwe Widows’ & your name & address to reverse, and mail in the envelope provided. (You do not need to add any more text to the envelope, and no stamp is needed.)

BY TELEPHONE—DEBIT/CREDIT CARDS: Please call our DONATION LINE (01302) 775245 (Mon-Fri 8.30am to 4.30pm).

Thank you!