World Life Changers, a community based, grassroots and Christian oriented organisation that offers humanitarian assistance to orphans and vulnerable children (OVCs) their families and their communities through community driven programmes, has been commended for its holistic approach to the diverse challenges that bedevil disadvantaged members of society.
The organisation, which was founded by Zaka-born community builder and development practitioner Desmond Chikamhi has continued to make remarkable strides in its quest to serve humanity. World Life Changers projects include among others educational support, gender and social inclusion, health care, household economic strengthening, Christian care and disaster relief.
“Our approach to humanitarian programming is both emergency and developmental so that while addressing the present pressing challenges of communities, we are also able to entrench sustainable solutions to everyday challenges that humanity face.
Sustainable programming is at the core of our work and we are happy to be championing programmes that are providing lasting solutions to community challenges. We are grateful to our various partners among them development agencies, the corporate world as well as the government for the continued support as well as the humanitarian space that we continue to enjoy,” Chikamhi said.
On his commitment to the noble vision of World Life Changers, Chikamhi said his upbringing had a strong bearing on his passion and commitment to humanitarian work and he will continue giving himself to community development for as long as he has breath in his lungs.
“I was born and raised in Zaka Jerera, Masvingo under a very difficult and a humbling environment. My father left me in the care of my polygamous father and his 3 wives at the tender age of 6," he said.
"Growing up in a big family where my father even struggled to fend for us was not an easy thing and I would work in other people’s fields just to get by and at least have a chance at education. Thanks to government intervention, I received educational support under the BEAM initiative which at least gave me a good start at life but unfortunately, I could not go to college and had to find other ways of developing myself professionally,” Chikamhi said.
The passionate community builder who then enrolled at the prominent Zimbabwe Christian College now the Central African Christian College believes that exposure to sound Christian teachings coupled with his own personal experiences molded him into be the person he is today and he is happy to give back to humanity through World Life Changers, an organisation he founded in 2018.
“My life struggles opened my eyes to the many challenges that other vulnerable and disadvantaged members of society faced and even with very little resources at my disposal, I felt compelled to play my part in alleviating human suffering through World Life Changers.
When I enrolled at the Christian College, I had to work as a garden boy during the day and then turn into a security guard during the night to raise my fees for the three years programmes. Some of our Church of Christ in Zimbabwe members and elders would chirp in at times but thank God I managed to study all the way to university,” he said.
All the struggles that Chikamhi faced have become the driving force behind the great vision he is championing through World Life Changers and he thanked all his benefactors and partners among them church members and development agencies for the support and generous donations to his cause.
“Through our Educational Support programme, we support the orphans and vulnerable children to have access and quality of education through provision of scholastic materials such as books, tuition fees among others. For us it’s not just about access to education but also making sure that whatever education they receive is of the right quality. We therefore thank our partners for making this ideal a reality.
Through our gender and social inclusion programme, we are ensuring that we leave no one behind just like the President has emphasised time and again. We are making sure that every child is accommodated regardless of their race, or nationality, creed, gender or religion, tribe or skin color. While we are fighting for the girl child, we are also pushing for the general promotion of equal opportunities of both the girl and boy child,” Chikamhi said.
Other World Life Changers initiatives like Health Care, Household economic strengthening, Christian Care and disaster relief have equally been commended for their design and efficiency in addressing humanitarian challenges.
“We are quite intentional about making a difference in society and we are happy to be the hope for many disadvantaged communities in Zimbabwe through tailor made programmes that are making a difference," Chikamhi said.
Through our disaster and relief programme, we help the vulnerable communities in times of natural phenomenon and catastrophies like drought and cyclones. During Cyclone Idai, we assisted over fifty thousand families after we received a donation of non-food relief items from the Methodist Church in the United Kingdom. During the Covid-19 pandemic, we scaled up our Menstrual Hygiene Management Project and started to make renewable or washable masks as a way to provide essential services to the orphans who could not afford to buy masks.”
While competing needs always outweigh available resources, Chikamhi thanked World Life Changer’s various partners as well as corporates like Schweppes Zimbabwe that have continued to lend a hand towards their community development programmes and called for more strategic partners and funders for their work.