Update on Zimbabwe
KEY FACTS
In the middle of February 2008, a loaf of bread cost 3.5 million Zimbabwean Dollars - at that time, $10 million was worth approximately £1. Today, (March 2008) that $10 million is worth only 20 pence.
A nurse's salary is $150 million Zimbabwean dollars but with the current levels of devaluation in currency, she will also receive $180 million JUST to cover her transport to and from work
There is no medical care left to speak of in the country and thousands of teachers are fleeing every day leaving children without education
I don't know if 'lucky' is the right word to use to describe how I felt when it was agreed that I should spend a week in Zimbabwe monitoring our project there and looking at potential new projects, but I am certainly privileged to have visited such an interesting country, to have met some of the wonderful people who live there and to have shared their lives, albeit, briefly.
My time was spent in Bulawayo where we currently support a home for Jewish (and, today, non Jewish) pensioners. There are 24 people living in this home, being looked after in their old age and also being protected from the harsh realities of a collapsing Zimbabwe. Staff ensure that these vulnerable people are unaware of how their life savings are totally worthless and that they are barely able to contribute to their upkeep. The home, like every home and (non political) individual in Zimbabwe is facing severe difficulties in sourcing food and medical equipment as the shortages and economic crisis expand to unthinkable levels. Currently almost everything the home uses has to be brought in from South Africa as it is simply unavailable in Zimbabwe.
The majority of Zimbabweans, of course, do not have this luxury. There is nothing so they have nothing. Inflation is crazily out of control: in the middle of February a loaf of bread cost $3.5 million - then, $10 million was worth approximately £1. Today, that $10 million (at the beginning of March) is worth 20 pence. Salaries can not nearly keep up with inflation: a nurse for the month of March is earning $150 million but this is worth so little she will also receive $180 million JUST to cover her transport to and from work. Salaries will have to rise again in April. Since any savings anyone, or any business, might have are in Zimbabwean dollars, people are truly desperate. A pension might buy two pieces of bread if you're lucky. There is no medical care left to speak of in the country and thousands of teachers are fleeing every day leaving children without teachers. HIV has ravaged, and continues to ravage, the population: children are losing their parents, their teachers and their role models, they are being left to the care of elderly, weak, grandparents who have no resources and no hope of an income. There is little hope that the March/April harvest will come to much for after years of drought, heavy rains late last year have wiped out much of the crops. People are hungry, children are going to school on an empty stomach, the sick are taking ARVs on an empty stomach and adults are looking for work or food with nothing to eat.
Zimbabwe is in a desperate situation and WJR is determined to play its part in supporting the most vulnerable of a vulnerable population.
