Harare, Zimbabwe – Caroline Mawoyo watches her 16 year old daughter washing dishes outside their wooden cabin. The teenager is expected to put on a new uniform for her first year in high school. Instead, it faces an uncertain future.
Mawoyo, 37, learned on January 22 that community care workers at Mavambo Orphan Care, an organization that once guaranteed the education of his daughter, can no longer pay for the school.
“The news devastated me. What I felt is indescribable, ”she says. “I completely depended on this support for the well-being of my children.”
Mavambo Orphan Care not only helps orphans, but also vulnerable to poverty and its effects. Now the organization is paralyzed by a steep policy of the United States which has ended almost all foreign aid.
Historically, the American agency for international development has pumped at least $ 4 billion a year in the programming of children worldwide. In 2024 alone, Zimbabwe received more than $ 12 million US dollars for vulnerable children, including orphans.
And since 2020, the President’s emergency plan for the relief of AIDS has funded various services for nearly 400,000 vulnerable and orphaned children, including antiretroviral therapy for people living in HIV / AIDS and payment of school fees.
This funding was withdrawn on January 20, when US President Donald Trump signed an executive decree that has arrested almost all of the USAID work, the main American organization of foreign humanitarian aid, as well as by Pepfar. The critical rescue services were technically authorized to continue under a derogation, but in all areas, this work stopped immediately or in the hours following Trump’s decree. Emergency food aid for hungry people has ended, as is medical services for people who died of tuberculosis and other diseases.
As in the case of Mavambo Orphan Care, the education services for children who, otherwise, could not afford to go to school, also ended.
“It was difficult to provide such news when you fully know that most of them are unable to cover the costs,” said a community care worker, who has asked not to be appointed due to the fear of remuneration.
National efforts to help vulnerable children exist. The basic education assistance module supports more than 1.5 million children who have never registered or who have abandoned school due to economic challenges. But economic challenges also afflict the Zimbabwean government. The funds are also delayed in this program, says that Taungana Ndoro, director of communication and plea for the Ministry of Primary and Secondary Education.
Ruvarashe Murangariri, the daughter of Mawoyo, missed four years of school, until 2021, when Mavambo Orphan Care intervened to pay his costs.
Now, said Murangariri, she is embarrassed.
“When some people ask me if I am at school, I lie because I don’t want people to lower me from above,” she said.
For children living, the situation is even more disastrous. More than 480,000 children in Zimbabwe are orphans due to HIV, according to 2023 data from the joint United Nations program on HIV / AIDS.
Maggie Goromondo cares about his two grandchildren, whose parents died. A child has HIV. It is not known how – or if – this child will receive more HIV drugs when even modest tuition fees will be out of reach.
“I am a seller and I receive $ 2 to 3 a day, but the costs for my combined grandchildren are around 180 dollars,” she said. “Where am I going to get this?”
