Photo: Teachers Brenda Mudzonga and Tracy Ncube used to live in this storage room at Mupambe Secondary School in Zimbabwe because other teacher housing was full. MCC’s Global Family education program is helping to build new teacher housing. (MCC Photo/Matthew Sawatzky)

It’s a bad memory for Brenda Mudzonga,* a geography teacher at Mupambe Secondary School in Zimbabwe. During her first six months at the school, there was no room for her in the cottage where most teachers lived. She stayed in a school store room with another teacher.

“I cried almost every day,” Mudzonga said. “I couldn’t see the other teachers’ cottage because it was so far away, and when my roommate wasn’t here, I was afraid to be by myself.”

Mupambe’s headmaster, John Dube, said poor living conditions like this continue to make attracting qualified teachers difficult. At rural schools, like Mupambe, teachers live on campus because their homes are too far away.
Mupambe Secondary School is one of seven schools supported by Mennonite Central Committee’s (MCC) Global Family education program in Matabeleland North Province: Siachilaba, Simatelele, Pashu, Tinde, Siansundu and Dampa secondary schools are all part of the program.

All of the schools are forced to conduct some classes outside. Tafa Benjamin, a teacher at Siachilaba Secondary School, said teaching under the trees is difficult.

“Voice projection is hard and we don’t have a good blackboard,” she said. “It’s crisis management.”

And the headmaster at Siachilaba, Peter Munkuli, said when it rains all students must come indoors.

“It’s a challenge. Learning stops and everyone is put in one classroom. If it rains for a week, learning stops for a week,” Munkuli said.

Another challenge that teachers face is livestock and other animals wandering through the outdoor classes.

The schools are located in the Binga District of Matabeleland North province about 217 miles from Bulawayo. It’s a

remote area and has the highest rate of poverty in the country. Families rely on marginal farming, mining, fishing and some casual labor for income.

Parents are charged fees to send their children to school—usually about 50 US dollars per term. But up to three-quarters of families are unable to pay. Twenty-two year old Irvine Muzamba walks nine miles a day to attend Mupambe Secondary School. But at times he’s been forced to work to support his family and help pay school fees.

“I worked herding cattle for almost a year and then I came back to school,” he said. “My parents have tried to pay. If I could, I would come to school all of the time.”

Global Family is supporting the schools in Matabeleland North in a variety of ways, including providing textbooks and classroom furniture, as well as materials for fencing, new classrooms and teachers’ housing.

Global Family also has established committees in all of the schools in Matabeleland North province, to bring together school officials, teachers, parents and community leaders. School officials say that approach works well, as issues are confronted on a community-wide basis.

Thadious Mwembe is a teacher who chairs the committee at Siansundu Secondary School. He said unpaid fees are an ongoing challenge.

“The solution could be to send students home,” he said. “But that’s not a good gesture in a Christian community and it would be a disservice. Education is a right.”

Community members and parents at the schools assist by keeping the school yard clean and gathering stones and other construction materials and helping with construction projects.

Global Family works with partners around the world, supporting more than 100 educational programs.

*Note: MCC spoke with teacher Brenda Mudzonga, in Zimbabwe in 2014. Sadly, she died in a traffic accident later that year. MCC extends condolences to her family, her colleagues and students at Mupambe Secondary School.