David and Nony Orr celebrate with others at Zimbiru Primary School gathered around the newly-installed taps bringing fresh water.
Nony and David Orr fulfilled one of their goals through an 18-month humanitarian mission in Zimbabwe.
The Fort Macleod couple told an audience of about 30 people Wednesday about their time helping to build schools and clinics and drill water wells in the African country.
“This was one of the hardest things we’ve ever done,” David Orr told the people gathered in council chambers in the G.R. Davis Administration Building.
The Orrs spent about 90 minutes telling the audience about the history of Zimbabwe, the impoverished conditions in which many people live, the challenges of getting things done, the amazing people they met and the projects that changed lives.
They also showed photos and videos of the beautiful natural landscape and its many wonders such as Victoria Falls and ancient rock art.
David and Nony have long desired to undertake a humanitarian mission.
“When we first got married it was one of our goals,” David said.
The Orrs applied for a mission though the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and were assigned to Zimbabwe in March 2023.
They spent the next eight months making arrangements to leave their life in Fort Macleod and travel to Africa.
In October 2023 the Orrs flew to Zimbabwe, a country that once was the breadbasket of Africa that was turned upside-down by a civil war and the ensuing corrupt government led by Robert Mugabe.
In the late 1990s a forced land redistribution led to the migration of rural people to cities that were not prepared to house them, and the collapse of the economy.
In 2005 Operation Murambatsvina saw homes being bulldozed and more than 700,000 people left homeless.
At the same time 3,000 people a week were dying from AIDS, and 1.3-million children were orphaned.
Much of the population lives in poverty, with people earning an average wage of $6 a day.
“If they get one meal a day, they are considered impoverish,” Nony Orr said. “If they get two meals, they’re doing okay.”
The Mugabe government was finally ousted in 2017 but corruption continues in Zimbabwe.
While in Zimbabwe, the Orrs were involved in projects that would benefit children.
The Orrs were charged with getting buildings erected and wells drilled for eight primary and secondary schools in Zimbabwe.
They oversaw construction work at two health clinics and construction of a medical waste incinerator.
In addition, the Orrs were involved in drilling wells for a community, helping set up a nutrition garden, assist a housing co-op society get lighting and water, and providing incubators to a regional hospital.
The Mandoga Rural Health Clinic was built along with two nurses’ residences, a shelter for expectant mothers, a cooking shed and guard house.
A well was drilled and tanks and a pump installed, along with solar to power the buildings.
Two septic tanks were installed, pathways built, and a medical waste incinerator installed.
They assisted about seven full-day nutritional screenings, and did preliminary work for projects at six more schools.
The work was made challenging by slow-moving bureaucracies and the general poverty of the country.
The Orrs also had to adjust to living in a foreign country that has no public services to fix roads or traffic lights,
They spent countless hours planning projects, contacting government officials, contractors and suppliers, and doing office work.
“It’s not easy to provide humanitarian assistance,” David said.
The rewards were many though, including witnessing how a well would provide clean water for students at a school as well as the nearby community.
They saw how much their trust in a local contractor to do the work properly meant to the company’s owner.
The impact those projects had on the company as well as the people it employed was emotional.
“There’s that side of humanitarian work that I hadn’t thought about,” said David, who became emotional when talking about the impact of the projects.
The work undertaken by the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is non-denominational, often in co-operation with other churches and aid groups.
The expectation is only that the projects will benefit people.
The Orrs closed by encouraging others to find ways to help people and communities, even if they can’t travel to foreign counties on humanitarian aid missions.
“We all have something to give,” David Orr said. “Everybody can do something.”
