Category: General

Reaching out to all former children from the MRCH Home

A group of adults who once attended Matthew Rusike’s Children’s Home are creating an Alumni organisation. They want to offer support to each other as well as reach out to those young adults who are imminently leaving the Home.

As you may know on reaching 18 years of age, by law, young adults have to be discharged from the Home. The Home does what it can to prepare these young people for this, but ultimately no longer have responsibility for them. A support network is one way to help with this.

If you, or anyone you know attended the Home in the past and wish to become part of this project, please contact our Chairperson and she will pass your details to the co-ordinator.

A thank you to our donors

Following our promotion of Amazon Smile – which enables customers to ask Amazon to add a donation as a percentage of their purchase to a charity of their choice – we have had our first confirmation of donations.

Similarly we have just received a cheque from PayPal Giving Fund for other donations.

Every little helps and we are very grateful to all those who donate to the Friends whatever route that takes. Your funds are invaluable to the Home.

Keep safe.

You can now donate via PayPal if thats easier…

At a time when it is so difficult to fundraise, we are suggesting people make donations direct instead if they feel able. We now have another mechanism for you to donate to the Friends – PayPal – it’s quick and easy if you already have an account set up.

Simply follow this link

  • PayPal will complete the relevant details.
  • Select the amount you want to donate – or specify your own amount.
  • You will be prompted about Gift Aid – following which you will receive an email to say that your donation has been received.

Thank you.

A drop in donations…can you help?

Since the Coronavius pandemic began we have seen donations for the Home drop off significantly as the ability to fundraise etc. has been interrupted.

The Home is now in lockdown but the needs of the children still continue. The latest update from the Home is here.

If you are able, please consider using alternative means of donating to help the Home…

If you shop on-line

We have set up FoMRCH as a charity on Amazon. This means if you purchase anything from Amazon you can choose to do so via their Smile link and nominate FoMRCH as a recipient. We then receive a 0.5% donation from Amazon. This is free to us and free to you – you just shop as normal.

Donate via your mobile phone

We have set up the ability for you to make donations via your mobile phone using Donr.

You can make either one off or monthly payments. Donr take a small portion of the donation. You simply say how much you want to donate to support the Home. For example:

Text RUSIKE 3 to 70085 – this will donate £3 to FoMRCH and will cost you £3 plus the charge of a standard rate message.

Text RUSIKE 10 to 70085 – this will donate £10 to FoMRCH and will cost you £10 plus the charge of a standard rate text.

Thank you so much for your continued support of the Home at this very trying time. Stay safe, stay at home.

Coronavirus – status update.

The Home is working very hard to keep children and staff safe. Staff who live off site are no longer able to work at the Home and no one is allowed to visit.

3 staff members (the Director, Matron and Nurse) are in charge and all the House Mothers and ancilliary staff remain isolated at the Home with the children.

The children are busy working in the garden, playing games and doing their chores. They are encouraged to wash their hands frequently.

All staff and children are well at the moment.

Astonishment: Laying Ghosts in Mugabe’s Zimbabwe

Graham Jones’ book about former MRCH Home Superintendent – Astonishment Mapurisa is now available on Amazon.

The synopsis:

“An Englishman returns to Africa after nearly forty years in a bid to recapture his carefree colonial childhood. Through a chance meeting his life becomes entwined with that of a one-time child slave and cattle herd who’s on a mission to revisit his own early life on the other side of the racial divide. A moving story of nostalgia, race, reconciliation and God’s power to transform, set against the background of two brutal regimes racist Rhodesia and Mugabe’s Zimbabwe. When Graham Jones returns to Zimbabwe to recapture his idyllic Rhodesian childhood, a chance encounter leads him to meet a one-time child slave called Astonishment. Now dedicated to helping society s most vulnerable, Astonishment grew up on the other side of the racial divide and is set on revisiting his very different past. As they travel together, this remarkable Zimbabwean shares the incredible story of how he overcame grinding poverty and being sold by relatives as a slave. Both men lay old ghosts to rest as Astonishment forgives and reconciles his divided family and Graham reconnects with the land of his youth not through the places he knew, but through the people he didn’t. Set against the daily brutalities of racist Rhodesia and Mugabe’s bankrupt Zimbabwe, Astonishment is a moving account of nostalgia, race and reconciliation that celebrates the transformative power of forgiveness.”