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Marvelous Moyo Gwanda Correspondent
VILLAGERS from Nhlamba village in Gwanda district’s ward 14 are building an Early Childhood Development (ECD) Centre to help reduce the long distances travelled by infants daily as they go to school. The young children are forced to travel about six kilometres to get to schools near them — a challenge that has motivated villagers to construct a central centre.

The village head Joshua Sibanda told Chronicle that the long distances exposed the children to perpetrators of child abuse with the tendency to target children walking long distances to and from school.

“The long distance travelled by our young children is an issue of concern. Therefore, as villagers we saw it proper that we intervene and build an ECD centre closer to protect our children,” he said.

He said children were also at risk as there were animals along the routes they used.
“There are dangerous snakes in this area and we fear that children might be attacked along the way to the far schools.

“In a bid to protect children, some parents have resorted to accompanying their children to school,” said Sibanda.
“We’re happy to say that we received tremendous support from our Member of Parliament Cde Edison Gumbo. He is pumping water for us using his generator because a borehole was drilled but not yet mounted.

“We’re also going to set up community gardens so that the produce would be used in feeding the ECD children,” said Sibanda.
He expressed gratitude over the determination exhibited by villagers in making the project a success.

While the government made it a requirement that every child passes through ECD learning before attending primary education, the sector has faced a myriad of challenges including lack of proper infrastructure and absence of trained teachers.

Cde Gumbo said there was a need for government efforts to be complemented to ensure a conducive learning environment was created for ECD learning.
He said an estimated $5,000 would be channeled towards the project through the sourcing of required building material among other things.

“This project was born out of need and we will do everything to make it a success. We will fence the centre and the gardens. The gardens would also help generate income for the school by selling some of the produce,” said Cde Gumbo.

He said up to 70 children would be enrolled at the centre expected to be completed before the end of the year.
“We hope to engage some donors to assist with the games equipment,” said Cde Gumbo adding that he would also help in registering the centre.