With the help of several donors, ZANE has been delivering parcels that contain food and coronavirus protection kits – these have had a huge impact on the wellbeing of some of our beneficiaries as you can see from the reports from our Zim teams below:
We have been delivering food and PPE (Personal Protection Equipment) parcels and doing this as quickly as we could so as not to have too many visible packages in our vehicles which may have attracted police attention.
What started out as a worry for those reasons, soon turned into complete pleasure as one by one we delivered the boxes and helped people to look at the contents. (2 very large food boxes and 1 fair sized PPE box).
They had to complete a questionnaire re the contents and many needed help doing this. They were all completely overjoyed at receiving these generous gifts, with comments such as:
- I haven’t seen this for so many years;
- I have never been able to afford that;
- I don’t ever allow myself this treat;
- my house will now be cleaner than it has been for decades;
- the shops don’t normally have this;
- now I’ll be able to have clean new masks instead of old scrubbed ones;
- now I don’t have to go from shop to shop to search for cheaper items and save my little supply of petrol;
And so it went on. It was astonishing what absolute joy it brought to our old beneficiaries, many who have been sliding into a silent, sad and depressed funk and showed us yet again how seemingly simple acts of kindness can lift a person’s spirit immeasurably.
I needed to visit Shirley again because she is in a tortured state about lack of money, medical aid giving her trouble, the theft of her jewellery (left to her by her mother) and whether to sell her house or not. Living alone, she is normally self- sufficient and happy.
However, having seen very few friends since early 2020 and covid troubles, she has sunk into despair and panics about dying and whether to sell her house or not. I’ve never seen her this bad.
When I brought in the gifts, her mood soared as she has not been able to afford ‘treats’ for years. Quite amazing!
Fleur was similarly but more quietly elated and wanted to thank the donors over and over. She is very deaf and almost totally immobile but seems happy with her quiet life and company of a small dog.
Keith, who has just come onto our ZANE books, was delighted with his food parcel and immediately wanted to write to the donors with a promise that he would repay them when he could! We think he is very short of food and so very thin.
However, he looked much improved compared to our initial assessment of him and was keen to chat, wanting to say what he was going to make for supper with food from the parcels. I also informed him we would now be assisting him each month and he promised he would repay us every cent as soon as he could.
I said that’s fine, knowing he’ll never be able to do that!
* Names and images may have been changed for privacy reasons
If you are already a ZANE donor, we thank you from the bottom of our hearts. If you are not a donor but would like to be, please follow the link below and know that every donation, however big or small, goes directly to where it is most needed. If you would like to help but can’t donate, please join the ZANE family and ‘like’ or ‘share’ our posts or write us a Google review – every positive step helps spread the word about the life changing work ZANE does.
Thank you – Nicky Passaportis ZANE Australia
Please donate to support pensioners struggling to survive in Zimbabwe
Any assistance is greatly appreciated and goes a long way to giving our pensioners a better quality of life and lift the pressure of money worries which is very debilitating emotionally.
(Donations made to ZANE in Australia, are tax-deductible)