steven mackintosh visits zimbabwe (2002)

Last summer, I was planning a holiday with my wife and children to Zimbabwe to visit my wife's mother who has lived there for over a decade. Just before leaving I happened to speak to Dan McLean from CARE International who asked me if I would be interested in taking some time out from my holiday to visit some of the projects CARE is involved with in that region.

Naturally, I said I would be delighted. This would be my second trip to Zimbabwe and I felt it would be an opportunity to see how the country's recent political and economic decline has affected the ordinary working people, especially in the poorer rural communities.

In the light of recent events in Iraq, Zimbabwe's problems have been somewhat overshadowed but they are still very much there and, thankfully, organisations like CARE are able to help where it is most needed but the need is great and it is not going away.

My first trip to Zimbabwe had been very different: traveling to game parks, seeing spectacular scenery - the classic African experience you might say. Now I was there again and it was plain to see how the country that had once been described as the breadbasket of Africa was now struggling to survive.

Early on the morning of 1 August our guide, CARE Zimbabwe worker Nelly, drove my wife, my eldest daughter and me to Zvishavane, a small south western town, where we met some of CAREs staff at their office there before heading into the rural areas to see food distribution projects in some of the badly affected areas.

The thing that first struck me was how remote and inaccessible many of the communities are. Traveling in an off-road vehicle, as we were, was slow going on the bumpy tracks so it's hard to imagine traveling long distances by foot and in such heat as people do here on a daily basis.

Our first stop was a children's nursery where younger infants and babies were being fed and weighed. The women who accompanied many of the children were more often than not their grandmothers and not the mothers.

This is because so many parents have died because of the aids virus, leaving the children to be raised by their grandparents. In much of Africa nearly every family has at least one person affected by the virus and Zimbabwe is no exception. The number of people dying from the disease is unfathomable, and now there is starvation.

One of the things that impressed me about CAREs work here is the way

they have appointed people from within the community to manage their

feeding and farming schemes thus avoiding an 'us and them situation'.

Nelly grew up in this area herself and so she knows the people and the

pitfalls of living in such an unforgiving environment intimately.

Another short drive took us to CAREs

feeding programme at a primary school

where we were greeted by a sea of young

faces and introduced to the schools

head master. It is true to say that these

children were not starving to death, as we

have seen all too often on news reports, but

they were severely hungry and malnourished.

For most of these children, this was the only thing they would eat all day and

some of them would have had to travel many miles on foot to get here. We had

brought a big box of candy sticks with us and it was a joy to see their beaming

faces as Martha (my daughter) handed them out .We were all touched to see

how polite and gracious they were. I was pleased that we were able to bring our

daughter with us as we felt it would be an important experience for her and one

that she would not forget.

Our last port of call was a farming project.

CARE had helped to finance the building of a

pipeline, which drew water from a nearby

water hole to help grow crops for the community.

This has been a great success but has suffered in

the recent drought conditions.. Without CARE

these crops would not be there but this is a

community growing crops by itself for itself, with

total commitment. It just needed CARE to set the

wheels in motion.

In the slow journey back that evening we were all very quiet, reflecting on the day's events.

The effect on all of us was profound. The immediate outlook for the people of Zimbabwe is

not good. I only hope that sometime in the near future CAREs presence will no longer be

needed and that, one day, the country and it's people are able to prosper as they once

did before the recent troubles began.

If you don't have a cause, I highly recommend a charitable thing.

I believe you might find it rewarding. I personally have.

It isn't reasonable to think one can 'better the world', however,

bettering one's self is a good start.