On a dusty July day, Indianapolis art gallery owner Jayne During picks her way through a maze of blockish brick and concrete dwellings. She is in Epworth, an impoverished neighborhood on the outskirts of Harare, Zimbabwe, searching for a little girl. Here, as in many parts of Africa, AIDS has created another epidemic: orphans left to fend for themselves.

During, a native of Ghana who now lives in Indiana and is a member of the Rotary Club of Indianapolis, finds five-year-old Fatima sitting on a scrap of cloth on the ground, too malnourished to walk.

Fatima’s mother and father are dead, and she and her two older brothers are now on their own. Theirs is a “child-headed household,” a term that applies to the many children orphaned by AIDS who live alone, with no adults to care for them. Such households have become common across Africa in the last decade. During, who was alerted to Fatima’s plight by a local school official, commits to helping the siblings.

She will work with a nearby orphanage and school to find a caretaker for them, and through the Kuaba Humanitarian Foundation, a nonprofit she set up two years ago, their education fees will be covered, along with their food, clothing, and medical needs.

“We provide everything for them so they don’t have to worry,” During says. “They just have to go to school.”

Earlier that morning, During attended a Rotary club meeting 6 miles away. She is right at home among the members of the Rotary Club of Harare Dawn, and she schmoozes tirelessly, pushing Zimbabwe’s elite to help their neediest fellow citizens in a country where AIDS claims an estimated 3,000 lives each week.

Committed to action

Zimbabwe’s orphaned children first came to During’s attention in 2001, before she became a Rotarian. She was in the country on a trip to buy art for her gallery, and an artist she met in Epworth, the father of a young boy, was dying of AIDS. “It was obvious that child would go to an orphanage,” During says.

Concerned about the boy’s future, she went to the nearby Matthew Rusike Children’s Home, where she discovered a range of needs. The energetic During, who holds degrees in business from Indiana Wesleyan and Purdue universities, immediately started working to meet those needs by sending food to the orphanage and bringing suitcases filled with clothing from the United States. Today, she focuses largely on supporting AIDS orphans and child-headed households. Her efforts are mostly in Epworth, but she also reaches the towns of Chishawasha and Gweru and the city of Bulawayo, about 250 miles southwest of Harare.

She returns to Zimbabwe about four times a year. “I believe in follow up,” she says simply.

About a year after her 2001 trip, an Indianapolis Rotarian named Tom Fisher stopped into her gallery. He’d just returned from leading a Group Study Exchange to Malawi, Zambia, and Zimbabwe. As he chatted with During about Africa, Fisher was struck by her sincerity and commitment to children. “You ought to become a Rotarian,” he told her. With Fisher as her sponsor, During joined the Indianapolis club in 2003.

Since then, she’s impressed her fellow club members, Fisher says. “A lot of the time, they are in awe of her energy and dedication.”

Fisher knew that Rotary would provide During with helpful contacts on her trips abroad, and now she visits as many Rotary club meetings as she can in Zimbabwe to raise money for children. Although her club doesn’t have a formal partnership with clubs there, During says that while traveling across Africa, “I can always go to a Rotary club and know they will support my efforts.”

On every trip, she visits the Rotary Club of Harare Dawn to report on her projects. In March 2006, its members, inspired by her work, surprised her with Paul Harris Fellow Recognition.

Meanwhile, During’s club contributed US$2,000 to help send a 40-foot container to Zimbabwe in 2005, which was loaded up with computers, toys, clothes, and book bags for students, as well as walkers and wheelchairs for people with AIDS. One member of her club collected school supplies and raised $500 by hosting a party at his home. The club contributed an additional $7,000 toward a second shipment in October 2006.

“Jayne moves very fast,” says Gregg Keesling, chair of the Indianapolis club’s World Community Service committee, who works with During to line up funds. “Jayne will get a project up and running before we have the money. And I love that.”

Getting results

In an old storefront in downtown Indianapolis, traditional African sculptures sprout from the hardwood floor like huts in a village.

The smooth stone pieces, in deep inky hues accented with rough, chalky parts, were made by Dominic Benhura, one of Zimbabwe’s most successful sculptors.

During donates 5 percent of the proceeds from her Kuaba Art Gallery to African orphans. In her office in the back of the gallery, neat rows of snapshots show a few of the 2,200 kids in Zimbabwe supported by her foundation, be it with school fees or new uniforms. More than 500 of them receive extra help because they live in child- headed households. Many of the kids don’t understand why their parents died, but AIDS is the usual culprit.

Back in Zimbabwe, Egbert Wever runs the District 9210 Disaster Relief Programme in Harare, which works with Rotary International’s World Community Service program to locate partner clubs. The district’s effort has obtained several Rotary Foundation Matching Grants, including $11,000 with matches from During’s Indianapolis club. Wever, a member of the Rotary Club of Harare, says it’s often hard to convince skeptical people overseas to help fund projects in Africa. They want proof, he says, that someone on the ground is making progress.

“If you don’t have people like Jayne,” he says, “they’ll say, ‘Oh, it’s not happening.’”

Dedication and inspiration

One of many events During set up for her July visit to Zimbabwe was a fundraising soiree in a wealthy suburb of Harare. At the party, Solomon Guramatunhu, a prominent eye doctor and a member of the Rotary Club of Avondale (Harare), agreed to help finance a borehole for a primary school in Epworth and to host a musical fundraiser at his home with a trio of Juilliard-trained musicians traveling with During.

“I got involved solely because of Jayne,” Guramatunhu says. “Her passion and dedication are infectious.” Michelle Nongogo, past president of the Rotary Club of Harare Dawn, says that During, as an outsider, is awakening Rotarians in Zimbabwe.

“Sometimes, we don’t see what’s next to us,” says Nongogo. “Jayne can relate. She’s found the key.”

Benhura agrees. The sculptor met During on one of her trips to find art for her gallery and now serves on her foundation’s board.

“If one has a business to run, to come [from the United States to Zimbabwe] every two to three months is not easy,” says Benhura, noting that During, a single mother of two boys, 10-year-old Jojo and 15-year-old Kofi, “sacrifices her family time to come here.

“To give 5 percent of your proceeds to projects is easy. But to give your time is different.”

 

Joseph Dits is a staff writer for the South Bend Tribune. He traveled in Africa with Jayne During in July 2006.