From My Village to Yours - November 9, 2013 [YouTube, 1 hr]
Presenter: Tinashe Basa and Dennis Gaboury, Trustees Zimkids Orphan Trust
Description: Tinashe Basa, 25, was born in a village in rural Zimbabwe, in a traditional handmade hut with a thatched roof, no electricity or running water. Like most rural children, he grew up hauling water from the nearest well, almost a mile away, and watching his parents try to scratch a bit of corn out of the dusty fields in his drought-stricken nation. Like most young Zimbabweans, he lives with one foot in the traditions of his Shona people - with its great respect for Elders, belief that the clan is more important than the individual, visits to local healers instead of doctors, and marriages arranged through payments to a bride’s family – and the other in the modern Western world of airplanes, computers and social media. Now the director of Zimkids Orphan Trust, which cares for 200 AIDS orphans in Bulawayo, Zimbabwe’s second largest city. AIDS has left tens of thousands of African children without parents, and Zimkids provides a safety net – a family – of food and medical care, tutoring, sports, art, traditional dance and vocational training for a group of the neediest. Read about them at www.zimkids.com. Tinashe is visiting the United States for the first time and will be in Fairbanks to raise money for Zimkids. Come to your local library on November 9 at 11 am and meet Tinashe over a video conference. He will be giving a presentation about his life and work from the Noel Wien library in Fairbanks over the OWL Network. You’ll be amazed at the similarities between Tinashe’s village and yours. (Thanks to Kenai Community Library for description.)