FOCHTA student beneficiaries make a difference to an elderly couple’s life
By Zione Matale, Executive Director
It was a normal day to the family of Mr Billy Thomasi, aged 85 and his wife Olaliya Damiyano, aged 77, on 30th August 2016. As usual, they both left their home before the sun had risen to cultivate their maize field before it got hot. Because of his age, Mr Thomasi manages to work only two six-metre rows at a time before he sits down to rest, then doing another two rows and after, to call his wife to head for home. His wife is so weak that she finds it difficult to help her husband with the farming so she just keeps him company.
Then at around 6:30am on that day, while the couple was in their field, a group of young people, six in number, all our student beneficiaries, arrived with hoes on their shoulders. Mrs Mtiya, the Grassroots Chairperson and Zione Matale, the FOCHTA ED introduced the young people to the elderly couple and explained to them that they wanted to help them with farming as a gesture of community participation in charity work. The couple was numb with the good news. After the young people had worked covering an area which would have taken them 5 to 7 days to complete, Mr Thomasi thanked the team for their surprise visit and tremendous help, while his wife was full of smiles knowing that it was a huge relief for her husband. The young people were happy to see that they brought joy to the elderly couple.
During each summer holiday, FOCHTA beneficiaries are required to participate in community work in their community to reciprocate FOCHTA’s help to them, and this group was from Nanseta community. The names of the youths that took part in the activity were Suzan Frezar, Rhoda Frank, Charles Kambeta, Jonathan Master, Franswell Namathawa and Steven Misomali. They were from form one and two.