Mavambo Orphan Care-Putting Children First The Putting Children First is a new programme which has been designed in conjunction with new and existing CAFOD partners in Zimbabwe in response to the needs of children which were identified during the partners work in  vulnerable communities across the Dioceses of Harare and Chinhoyi.  

With a calculated 1.6million orphans and vulnerable children (including more than 100,000 child headed households)  in Zimbabwe, accounting for 34% of the child population under the age of 15 , it is crucial for all social development programmes to take account of their needs and interests. However, 79% of these children are not receiving any support .  When they are included in programmes, their needs and interests are not taken into account.  Nutritional support without access to ARVs leaves the extra nutrition ineffective.  Likewise, access to education without the needed psychosocial support may invalidate educational benefits for a child. Coordination of care, including an accurate and individual needs assessment to determine the proper package is critical not only to ensure effectiveness, but also to ensure efficiency . 

The programme provides support to the ongoing activities of Restless Development and other partner organisations implementing the same programme, but also allows us to scale up and to concentrate our efforts on the needs of vulnerable children.  In addition, the partnership itself has been designed in order to bring together a range of expertise and backgrounds with each partner able to contribute to the network and all able to learn from the experiences and best practices of the members. Restless Development will contribute to the project objectives through providing technical support to other partners on livelihoods through income generating activities and vocational skills building. The programme has been designed for 2-years.  This is in order to give the network enough time to establish itself, build trust and confidence between the members and thus start to see the benefits of mutual learning.  Also it is enough time to allow training and capacity building of members in child protection and child participation and for research to take place which will form the basis of a more comprehensive service delivery component focusing more on livelihoods and access to education.   

The programme goal is to ensure vulnerable children in Harare and Chinhoyi have access to the essential services and resources they need to live sustainably, with dignity.

The key expected outcome for Mavambo Orphan Care :
1.	720 OVC are confident and resilient to the challenges of life in an assertive way in accessing services through the use of child led directory and other referral protocols in Harare Diocese.
2.	. Mavambo Orphan Care will have increased capacity for research and advocacy on issues affecting OVC, with evidence of positively influencing decision makers
3.	Mavambo has increased capacity to deliver positive change through an effective programme and service delivery and prioritisation
4.	 Improved access to health care services and psychosocial support to   at least 720 children

5.	An active and committed network member of the Putting Children first network, that addresses lived realities of children