Star of Zimbabwe: "Nothing drives me more than passion" - Ingrid Hall
Mrs Ingrid Hall is the epitome of the personification of this sentiment as she has voluntarily and totally taken it upon herself to assist less privileged community members within her neighbourhood.
Labeled by her fellow community members as the local "Mrs Nightingale", Ingrid has dedicated most of the previous decade to community work. The fruition of her compassion is evident in the positive change she has brought to Thorngrove (Ward 7 - Cllr Mckenzie Sibanda).
Worried by the level of school dropouts and illiteracy in the constituency, Ingrid conducted in-depth research to establish the cause behind these unhealthy statistics.
Above: Children patiently await their turn to get a ration at the centre
The analysis established the unavailability of proper learning facilities within the township as the major reason for the poor state of education.
In 2003, she resolved to establish a community study centre, to assist the children in the neighbourhood to elevate their pass rates.
Together with her husband, Mr Albert Hall, she purchased a property in Thorngrove (21 Lucky Bean Road) and set it up as a learning centre for the children. Even though Ingrid had originally intended to establish it as a study centre, she could not, due to the unavailability of funds to register it as such.
“The project sort of started by a mistake. I was looking for a house to rent to make a study centre because so many children in Thorngrove are failing O Level and I started to investigate what could be the cause of that. I found out that a lot of the children that had failed were living in houses where there were a lot of lodgers (tenants), which essentially deprived the children of enough room to read. I then thought that what was needed is a study centre where they could come and read and do their homework in an enabling environment,” said Ingrid.
The “study centre” has since become a safe heaven, not only for school children, but also for other vulnerable and under-privileged sectors of society, as she also now caters for orphans and people living with HIV/AIDS.
Ingrid, with the assistance of other community members who have also engulfed the spirit of volunteerism, operates a soup kitchen. They it took over its operations from another selfless and dedicated community member who has since relocated.
The soup kitchen caters for children from underprivileged families and has a register of 276.
About 120 children frequent the centre on a consistent basis.
The kitchen is open twice a week and some of the children, who are of the school-going age, pass by the centre collecting their rations on their way from school.
“Having bought this building with our own money, we also started a support group for those living with HIV/AIDS. There was also a lady who was running a soup kitchen at the same time. She was cooking outside her house so we invited her to come and operate from these premises as we were only running the support group by then and that’s how the soup kitchen came to being. She has since moved to somewhere very far and it was difficult for her to run it from there, hence we took it over,” she said.
The organisation currently covers educational costs of children that hail from less privileged families in the area. She pays school fees for about 15 primary school pupils who learn at Lozikeyi Primary School in Nguboyenja. She also pays tuition and boarding fees for 4 high school pupils.
Mrs Hall used to invite school children for Mathematics and English lessons during the height of inflation, which disrupted the education fraternity in the last half of the past decade.
She and the other volunteers dedicated their time and resources to ensure that these children are not left behind, as there was virtually no learning taking places in conventional schools.
As a way of also bringing the adult community onboard, she and her team of dedicated volunteers also work in tandem with an HIV support groups, which they assist in rendering Home Based Care (HBC). The “Good Samaritans” meet with the support group every Thursday evening to discuss topical issues, share challenges and offer solutions where possible.
“We would only teach them Mathematics and English and, when the situation normalised, they went back to school and then stopped coming here. We want to
resuscitate that and bring in more children this time,” she said.
Ingrid funds her concept idea of poverty alleviation and selfless determination for the betterment of the lives of fellow community members, with her meager earnings from her small commuter omnibus enterprise. Her husband, relatives, friends and well-wishers also give a hand as and when possible.
She has since been linked with a humanitarian organisation, which is based in the United Kingdom, to formalize her operations and register her entity as a Trust. Ingrid says that she hopes that this development will avail more funding for the project and turn it into the success that she has always envisioned. She said her dream was to uplift the standard of living in young generations of all the people of Thorngrove.
“A relative of mine, who is in the Diaspora, recently introduced us to a charitable organisation that is based in the United Kingdom. This organisation has asked us to draft a proposal so that they can go over it and get back to us. We are currently in the process of submitting the proposal and we are hopeful that it will come in and assist us. This will be the first time that we are sourcing funding from an external organisation,” she said.