Supporting
The Fruit Orchard at Glow College
Planting the fruit orchard at Glow College (Which serves teenagers from 12 to 19 years old) is an important step in restoring land at the heart of the diamond mining community of Marange, Zimbabwe. In its first phase, the project filled in dangerous, abandoned mine holes and planted a 60 tree fruit orchard in their place.
Principal Simbarashe Kusena
A School Built on the Diamond Concession
Glow College is not an ordinary school. It sits directly on the Marange diamond concession on land where, years ago, schools were leveled and communities displaced to make way for diamond mines.. In their place, Glow College has become something rare: a school that welcomes young women who have become mothers, and who in many communities would be turned away and stigmatized for it. Here, they are welcomed and given a chance to finish their education, alongside 121 other students from Chipindirwe and the surrounding villages.
Planting Day and Celebration
On March 18th the tree planting day at Glow College was held. Nearly 380 people came: local leadership, headmasters, teachers, women, and schoolchildren, all planting mango, red grape, granadilla, apple, lemon, guava, paw paw, orange, and mahogany trees together. As Blessmore Simango, MWA's Secretary General, wrote in his report on the day, the event "planted trees at Glow College, enhancing environmental conservation and promoting sustainability."
The students felt it too. As one Form 4 learner, Thashia Chipindirwe, wrote afterward: "When I look at these small trees I feel hope."
And Principal Simbarashe Kusena, who leads the school, put it simply in his message to supporters: "Thank you for believing in Glow College."
Today's Challenges
The realities of maintaining a growing orchard in a water scarce community are difficult to imagine. Glow College and the surrounding community share a single 35-metre well, the only water source for drinking, sanitation, and the orchard. With no pump, students carry water by hand, bucket by bucket, and are limited to just one hour of watering a day. That hour comes before lessons or after lunch. This has led to tired students, uniforms soiled before class even begins, and lost class time.
The young trees have outgrown their initial supports and are now susceptible to being eaten by the goats and cattle that roam free.
Make a Donation
Why We Need to Act Now
Zimbabwe's schools are currently on break. That means, for the next few weeks, there are no students on campus to carry water to the orchard by hand. If we can install a solar-powered water pump and fencing before students return, we protect everything already planted — without asking children to sacrifice another hour of their education to do it.
Your Impact
This builds directly on the already invested and successful planting of 60 fruit trees and filling of mine pits. The March 2026 planting day gathered 380 people, bringing together the community to celebrate the planting of 60 trees comprising 9 different fruit tree varieties. Stage 2 protects that investment and gives Glow College a sustainable way to water it: more water in less time, less student labor, and less time that is taken from their learning. Years from now fruit will be a source of sustenance for a community and land will be restored from barren to fertile.
Supporting Glow College is an investment in education, in restoration, and in a community rebuilding itself on land the mine once took. Trees planted on mine holes. Water, fenced and pumped, instead of carried by hand. Children in class instead of at the well. This is what the next $1,438 makes possible.