The parish has for many years supported projects overseas. Usually this has meant giving financial support through donations to CAFOD or responding to Mission appeals. Sometimes there have been personal links between St Peters and the project – through a member of one of the religious orders in the parish or with a young parishioner spending time visiting and working on a project overseas through their school.
During 2007-2008 Fr Pius Sibanda, who had been the director of the seminary in Bulawayo, was studying in London and living at St Peter’s. It was a period when Zimbabwe was much in the news with stories of political and economic upheaval. This was made all the more real for us as we heard the news fed back from the seminary.
Fr Pius told us about his home village, Nguwanyana, in south west Zimbabwe where his mother still lived. The village did not have a well or access to clean water. Villagers had to go every day to the nearest river, 4km away, to fetch water digging it from the sand. Most people walked to fetch water and although some used donkeys to carry the water drawn from the river, many had to carry buckets the 4km back to the village on their heads.
So when, towards the end of 2008, the time approached for Fr Pius to return to Zimbabwe, we wanted to do something concrete and decided to try and raise the money to provide a borehole and pump in Nguwanyana. We set ourselves the target of raising £5,000 but the enormous generosity of parishioners was such that we ended up raising over £20,000.
It seemed that raising the money was the easy part. Because of the problems in the country no charities involved in providing boreholes seemed to be working in that area if they were working in Zimbabwe at all and, in the end, we had to work through Fr Pius to find a drilling company. Then the drilling had to be done at the right time of year to ensure that the borehole was deep enough to be able to provide water during the dry season. The first time the company drilled in Nguwanyana itself, it could not find water though it was then successful a few kilometers away. Nail-biting months of delay followed while we had to wait for the drilling firm to return to Nguwanyana but, at their second attempt, the drillers were successful and now Fr Pius’ mother and her fellow villagers have access to clean water.
Fr Pius sent us photos of the machinery, the drilling process and the pump being used by villagers. As the pictures show, the villagers are delighted to have their own clean water supply so near at hand.
After the bills had been paid, there was still a substantial amount left in the Well Fund. Therefore the Parish Team decided that, as the money had been raised to supply water in Zimbabwe, the remaining money should also be spent on providing more clean water in that country. It was agreed that the drilling company should investigate siting 2 more boreholes in the vicinity of Nguwanyana. As before there were delays due to seasonal difficulties but the great news came through on 19th September that 2 further boreholes had been drilled.
Both boreholes were recently blessed and Mass was celebrated. The school children and teachers will benefit from one borehole and the other will be used for a dip tank for cattle to be dipped to remove ticks. Villagers will also be able to use this borehole for their daily water.
Our enormous thanks go to all who have supported the project and especially to Kit Greveson and Fr. Pius for their perseverance in seeing the project through from its inception in late 2008 for almost 3 years.
Where there’s a will there are now 4 wells!
The images below are cropped thumbnails of the actual pictures – not just bad photos where heads etc. have been chopped off!
To view the images properly, click on the first image then use your mouse to click inside the image on the right hand side to see the next one or on the left hand side to see the previous one. Alternativeley use the right and left arrows on your keyboard.
Click on ‘CLOSE’ or outside the image to end the slideshow.
