REACHING Out Charity Organization (ROCO) of Bulawayo has partnered with other nine youth organizations to empower young people at the Richmond dumpsite popularly known as Ngozi mine.
ROCO founder, Langelihle Sibanda said the initiative was launched after the realization that most young people at Ngozi Mine are not going to school due to lack of resources.
“After doing a survey we realized that children at Ngozi mine are not attending school because they do not have the basic necessities and they are stigmatized,” said Sibanda.
“They are also picked on because of where they reside”.
Sibanda said they will be donating food stuffs, sanitary wear, clothes, school uniforms and stationary.
The first distribution will be on December 8 this year.
According to ROCO there are about 600 -700 people living in Ngozi mine, 89 of those are children and 19 of them are not attending school.
Meanwhile, former vice president of ROCO, Khanyisani Mbambo said the project’s drive is to spread love
“We are promoting love among our local communities by helping the Ngozi mine people because of the inhuman condition they are exposed to,” said Mbambo.
“There are so many health hazards they are exposed to at the dumpsite. They spend time rummaging through the dump and collect some items which they later resell to irk a living”.
Sibanda alluded that they have came up different strategies to raise funds for the project.
“In conjunction with TM Hyper we have a donation table which is available on Saturday from 1300hrs to 1600hrs,” said Sibanda.
“The donation table is open to anyone in the community and people can donate as little as a dollar. We are also raising funds through a movie that is going to be screened at Sterkeinekor and we are also going to have a car wash”.
