The ManicaPost
Tendai Gukutikwa
Post Correspondent
FAITH Shundure was only 13 when she moved from Mutare to her rural home in Bocha, Marange, to start her secondary education.
Little did she know that she would be trudging a total of 24km daily to and from Masasi Secondary School to acquire her education.
During the first term of her first year of secondary education in 2018, Faith had to walk that long distance on a daily basis.
Others would walk equally long distances to Marange High School.
Apart from the exhaustion, the long walk also exposed Faith and her mates to various dangers.
She even contemplated dropping out of school until her parents decided to place her in a bush boarding facility near her school.
While most bush boarders usually lodge at homesteads or shopping centres, Faith and her colleagues rented accommodation at a disused service station in the middle of nowhere.
The threat of robberies, drug and alcohol abuse, teenage pregnancy as well as child marriages loomed large due to the informal arrangement which lacked supervision.
This broke the hearts of the villagers from the school’s catchment area and they mooted the idea of setting up a temporary boarding facility for their children.
A timber structure served the girls’ accommodation needs for a few terms until a development partner, Plan International, came to their rescue and built a boarding facility at the school.
The hostel has the capacity to house 40 girls. Each of them will be required to pay a nominal boarding fee.
Apart from the bedrooms, toilets and bathrooms, the hostel also has a kitchen and a pantry.
When schools re-open, Faith will be among the pioneers to occupy the low cost boarding facility.
“We cannot wait for schools to open so that we settle in the new boarding facility. Before the temporary structures were built, my friends and I stayed at a nearby service station where there was no parental or teacher supervision. Men would visit and no one would ask them to leave due to fear,” said an ecstatic Faith.
In an interview with The Manica Post, Ms Charity Matiza of MatizaVillage, said the service station lodgings were exposing their children to several harmful things.
“Girls from as far as Bambazonke and Matiza Villages would lodge at a nearby service station.
“While the schools are too far, the thought of our daughters being alone there in the wilderness was breaking our hearts.
“We came together and engaged the school head to allocate some space at the school for a boarding facility. If they are near their teachers, supervision is guaranteed,” said Ms Matiza.
Mutare District Schools Inspector (DSI), Mr Creezin Chofamba, said the development will go a long way in combating child marriages and teenage pregnancies.
He highlighted that in Mutare District alone, 134 girls were married between March and June.
“When schools closed we were still assessing the situation but the numbers were not looking good. A total of 134 Mutare girls were victims of child marriages during such a short period of time. In fact, the figures could be higher than that. It came as a pleasant surprise when a development partner came on board to build a boarding facility for the girls,’’ said Mr Chofamba.
He said the initiative should be adopted in other child marriage hotspots areas across the province.
“Other hotspot areas are Chitora, Marange and Odzi. In Odzi, there are illegal gold miners who lure the girls with short-lived luxuries. While child marriage is a form of abuse, the children also become victims of domestic violence once married,” he said.
He said the Ministry of Primary and Secondary Education is lobbying for resources to construct low-cost boarding facilities in the hotspot areas.
He said there is need to double efforts in combating child marriages as the Covid-19 pandemic is worsening the burden.
