Disabled Children’s Care
Vimbainesu Orphan’s Village
SUPPORT FOR THE MOST VULNERABLE
This critical program focuses on disabled children and their families. While based in Harare, the program also provides out-reach services to children from rural areas.
This program educates caretakers around the issues of caring for disabled children. Through a series of training workshops with physical therapists, educators and other team members, parents learn how to care for their child and meet other parents in similar circumstances. A new program to assist disabled children who are orphans, or whose parents are infected with HIV has been developed. Through this program, the families are receiving nutritional support and increasingly, access to anti-retroviral medications needed to stay healthy.
The Trust also holds workshops to educate fathers about the causes and nature of disability and to dispel negative beliefs that contribute to the high divorce rate among parents of disabled children.
FAMILY-BASED CARE
In Shona, Vimbainesu means trust in us. While the J.F. Kapnek Trust believes that it is best for children to remain within their extended families if orphaned, we continue to provide family-based care for about two dozen orphaned boys and girls left without an extended family to care for them.
As a rural, family-based home, Vimbainesu benefits from strong community integration, which is essential to providing a safe, supportive and nurturing environment for children to grow and develop.
We continue to seek jobs for adolescent orphans, allowing them to lead independent, productive lives.
