We’re Sending Another Container to Zimbabwe!

[loading the 2004 container at Ypsilanti First UMC] WE ARE COLLECTING THESE ITEMS FOR NYAKATSAPA and CLARE UM SCHOOLS: [These Two Schools are both located in and serve very poor rural areas.] 1. Books, in good condition only—Children’s easy-to-read and high interest primary age books. From picture alphabet books to fourth grade levels. Two complete sets of World Book Encyclopedias—if no more than 10 years old. No textbooks, please; they simply don’t fit the curriculum. Both paperback and hardcover books are welcomed. We have enough board books, but all the other categories are good. If mailing costs aren’t too much of a factor, books for upper elementary would also be useful, though since the children are surrounded by their Shona language, their reading level is a couple of years behind most American classes. Biographies, Bible stories, and elementary level non-fiction are also very useful. Since English is both the language of instruction and the country’s official language, the only hope these children have of escaping unskilled poverty is to learn English. 5,000 books will give each school a base collection that will change lives! 2.School supplies, paper and pencils and blue ball point pens, erasers, small pencil sharpeners (I saw kids there sharpening pencils with razor blades), crayons, Magic markers, scissors, paper clips, rubber bands. 3. CHALK—a critical teaching tool, as they do much of their instruction on the boards. Theirs is soft, crumbly and expensive. Our ordinary, hard dustless chalk works so much better that even university professors covet it. 4. A laptop computer for the District Superintendent to use as he travels around to meetings and working in the rural areas. …………………………………… MOST OF THE FOLLOWING ARE INTENDED FOR OLD MUTARE HOSPITAL & MUTAMBARA HOPSITAL 1. Multiple vitamins—for adults and/or children. Adult vitamins are considerably cheaper in quantity bottles and older children can use them as well. Vitamins are particularly helpful for HIV victims. 2. Over the counter analgesics are in very short supply. Old Mutare Hospital was completely out of painkillers the day we took them [a pathetic] 8 large bottles of ibuprofen, aspirin, etc. Children’s versions of these are in even shorter supply. 3. Cough medicines for both children and adults are also useful as the dusty environment aggravates this condition. 4. Bandaids, antiseptic ointments and washes, and sutures. ……..………………………… WE WILL BE SENDING A CONTAINER FROM YPSILANTI, MI TO ZIMBABWE VERY EARLY IN SEPTEMBER. HELP US FILL IT! MAILING OR SHIPPING ADDRESSES BEFORE AUGUST: Morris or Ann Taber 2856 Renfrew, Ann Arbor, MI 48105-1452 THEREAFTER; First United Methodist Church, 209 Washtenaw, Ypsilanti, MI 48197-2525 QUESTIONS: morris@taber.net or 734-662-9880