Every time I visit Lovemore House it is doing something different. The first time I visited it was home to a small group of boys, who would otherwise have been on the streets. I remember how they loved their football. Last time it had become the Presbytery office and a bit of a conference centre, but was somewhat under-used. Now it has become a training centre, though the Presbytery office is still on site.
The building, situated in the Cranbourne area of Harare, out towards the airport is a fair size and in reasonably sized grounds. It is thus a good resource for the Presbytery, who keep reviewing and adapting its use.
This has now become a venue for running short courses for evangelists so that they can gain skills which will help them to generate income, but also offering them something practical to pass on as they engage with communities where people are struggling to make a living.
At the moment they are running four courses, each running for three months. First of all, we visited the cutting and designing students, of whom there are five. They learn how to make simple garments and, like all the others, were enthusiastic about what they are doing. We saw examples of a basic dress, a basic blouse, a basic shirt, basic trousers, and a child’s dress.
Then we went on to look at how the catering course runs. Here there are nine students, the maximum possible for that course. Again, they learn basic cooking, so cited examples of things they have done with eggs and potatoes, and also talked about cake-making and the likes of scones and donuts, which they had made and taken off to sell.
The third group were the welders, where there were just three. Their big problem is that the electric power is usually switched off during the day, part of Harare’s programme of managing the electricity supply by ‘load shedding’. The centre does have a generator, but it is not working at the moment.
The fourth group, again of three, were those learning agriculture. At the moment they are working towards producing a crop of tomatoes, and are preparing the ground for that. Previously they had grown cabbages and there is a large area where peppers are being grown. All of the students, in all four spheres, would have liked a longer course, but felt that they had benefited from what they had been able to do.
The Presbytery are also considering how they can expand the range of courses.
The Lovemore House programme is now a helpful part of the Presbytery‘ strategy to find ways of being self-sustaining. It is hoped it will provide a small income to the Central (payroll) Fund, but it is also supporting the evangelists in finding ways of supporting themselves.
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