Ward 41 takes ownership of its own community

Diana Nherera Suburban Reporter

COMPANIES and schools based in Marlborough have taken the lead in helping the City of Harare install a solar system at the district office and build a new pre-school in the area among other community initiatives.

The two corporate citizens and two schools have taken ownership of community affairs in their area of operation through their gestures.

A company based in the suburb donated solar panels for the installation of a power back-up system at Marlborough District Office.

Another company involved in land development donated 10 000 bricks towards the building of a council pre-school expected to be built at the district office.

Happy Primary School, also based in Marlborough, is working to establish a play centre to be located at Marlborough Council Clinic while Avonlea-based Pitter Patter Primary School also donated 30 bags of cement.

Ward 41 councillor Kudzai Kadzombe said the donations by the companies and schools based in the ward were an exhibition of their commitment to the welfare of the community.

“People in the community have taken ownership of their own community and they’ve said let’s make a change.

“Residents said I should engage local business people and developers.

“This is what I have done and we can see that people are coming through to play their part in the community,” she said.

Cllr Kadzombe said since 2018 residents of the ward have been urging her to engage corporate organisations based in the ward to see where they can help.

“We then targeted Old Mutual, the American Embassy and the Chinese Embassy. People were saying their head offices are here so they should be doing some social corporate responsibility (activities) in the community. We have knocked on their doors several times but they have really never wanted to contribute to community projects. And people will be having expectations that the big companies, the big embassies will play a big role.

But we realised that smaller people, the smaller indigenous companies, the smaller upcoming schools are actually playing a bigger role than the traditional (big) companies.”