This is a text-only version of an article first published on Monday, 18 April 2016. Information shown on this page may no longer be current.
Angela Sheppard has seen first hand the challenges that the drought is posing for Zimbabweans already dealing with the challenges of rural poverty. In 2015, when she was holidaying at Victoria Falls, the Zimbabwean guide who was showing the area took her to the village of Chidobe.
She says: "Chidobe is a village about 26km from Victoria Falls town, the last 6km of which is down a dirt road.
We were greeted by Alfred, the head man, who took us to the only well which serves the whole village of 3,000.
He also showed us the water pipes which needed replacing and explained that there was no pipe linking the pump to the dip tank, a distance of over 300ft.
Alfred , Chidobe's head man stands by the village well.
Angela Sheppard.
Children from the school in Chidobe.
Angela Sheppard.
Without such a pipe, it takes the women a week to fill, bucket by bucket.
To fix these things is no easy task as there isn't a Wickes around the corner! It means going to Bulawayo, hundreds of miles away, to source the materials needed and then transport them to the village.
Neither of these two projects cost a Bill Gates' amount of money, neither was a four figure amount but, of course, to those there it is more than they can possibly afford.
It was Moses, our lovely Zimbabwean guide, who went to Bulawayo and transported the materials needed for these projects. "She continues: "The people there are subsistence farmers and there is no extra food grown which can be sold at the local market.
In September 2002 the World Food Programme reported on the desperate situation in the village and that the maize crop had failed as is frequently the case.
After Alfred's conducted tour, we walked across parched and arid ground, quite scrubby with a few mango trees and not much else, to his own compound where he and his family live.
Since returning, I have kept in email touch with Moses."In the last few weeks, he has told me about the drought situation in that area of the country which now means that the well has almost run dry.
Of course, we would almost stare in disbelief if we turned on our taps and water did not flow.
And I realise from going online that the drought is affecting many parts of the continent due mainly, it would seem to be the effect of El Nino, although last year Chidobe was also affected by drought. "Uncertain as to whether Chidobe will be receiving any government or international assistance to help with the impacts of the drought and concerned about the school, whose fees many of the local children cannot afford to pay, Angela has been researching ways to help: "I am returning to Chidobe in June and have asked Moses to set up a meeting for me with the School Development Committee who run the school there.
I want to hear from them what their priorities are for the school as I hope, on my return home, to obtain some funding.
I have been asked to give a presentation to the relevant charities committee here which is exciting - a little goes a long way. "In addition, I am in touch with an organisation which, for some time, has provided funding for various projects within the village.
Any further funding I am able to secure will be channelled and administered by them as those involved visit twice a year and personally oversee the projects for which funding is specifically designated while they are there.
This is essential.
Please pray that any money raised for the school there will provide a future for the children. "Angela Sheppard worships at St Andrew's Church, Dean Court, which is part of the Cumnor Parish in Oxford.
Relief from Hope Africa
HOPE Africa, in partnership with the Episcopal Relief and Development, have been working on drought relief efforts in several dioceses over the past months.Pictured is a local priest, teachers and children at the Learning Tree Pre-School in Swaziland.
So far HOPE Africa has provided food parcels in the Dioceses of Saldanha Bay, Zululand, Lesotho, Namibia and Khahlamba.
The organisation also increased the capacity to store water with the provision of water tanks at St James Mission Hospital, Lesotho, and in four schools in the Diocese of Swaziland. "The drought situation in our area has really crippled lives, under normal rainy seasons we plough and harvest and are able to support our families, but this time the drought has completely wiped out our hopes to grow our own food", said a woman on behalf of beneficiaries in the Diocese of Zululand. It is reported that the current drought is being worsened by an extremely strong El Nino weather pattern which has brought drier conditions to Southern Africa.
Crops in communities that rely on subsistence farming for survival have died due to insufficient rain and increased prices mean poorer families cannot afford food. Experts have cautioned that the more severe impact of the current drought was likely to occur towards the drier winter months.
HOPE Africa acknowledges that there is a need to reach out to other dioceses as the drought continues. Giving around £5 (about 100 South African Rand) would pay for 10kg of mealie meal for a family of five.
£28 (600 South African Rand) would pay for a food parcel of non perishable food for a family of five and £95 (around 2,000 South African Rand) would pay for 75 litres of water each for 240 families.
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On the brink of a crisis
by Clare HaynsIN a country which was once the 'breadbasket of Africa', Zimbabwe is now on the brink of another crisis.A perfect storm of political failure, gross mismanagement of farm land, plus the effects of 'El Nino' causing drought in various parts of the country have meant that Zimbabwe is in trouble: it is estimated that 30 per cent of the population, about 2. 8 million people, are in dire need of food aid. I was there last month with the charity ZANE and heard stories of people struggling to survive.
Shelley works in Matabeleland providing nutritional supplements to rural communities and she said: "The situation is just horrible.
I visited a school and the headmaster was in turmoil as two children had to be carried there by their friends as they did not have the energy to walk.
These children can walk up to 15 miles a day to school from the age of four, and leave before sunrise.
The head told me the children often come to him with aching bellies and all he can tell them is to drink water.
He can barely support his own family, never mind look after his pupils. "A visit to a school on the outskirts of Harare was eye-opening.
Children who I had visited a year ago were clearly malnourished and their teacher was deeply concerned.
Many families now rely on their own tiny plots of land to grow what they need to survive, and two years of poor rains have been devastating.
The children were surviving on a nutritional supplement, meant to be added to a meal.
Signs of poor nutrition were easy to spot: children had yellowing skin, patchy hair growth, dull eyes, and were finding it hard to concentrate in class.
It's not just children who are affected either.
Nursing homes that we visited were struggling to find enough food to feed their elderly residents and in one they were fed one meagre meal a day which was only being supplemented by vegetables via occasional charitable donations. Stunting from the 2007 hunger is obvious, particularly in the rural areas, and now this generation is again likely to suffer the long term consequences of this tragic situation. The Revd Clare Hayns is the Chaplain at Christ Church, Oxford and a Trustee of ZANE UK