Most weeks I get to spend an hour or two with the Nanaimo Interact Club, a high school Rotary Club. That time is definitely among the highlights of my week. These fourteen to seventeen year old students are without doubt leaders in their school but that’s not where it ends. Most of them are also active community volunteers while, at the same time, holding down part time jobs and meeting their family commitments. We adults could learn a lot about time management from them.

Over the past year, our Interact Club has been working in partnership with the Interact Clubs at Sihlengeni High School and Mzinyathini High School in Zimbabwe to support 37 AIDS orphans at Mzinyathini and 15 at Sihlengeni.

They have done this with money the club raised last year on the sale of T-Shirts and their Your Move Family Event, which they held last October at Harbourfront Plaza. The event featured live music, children’s games, tarot card readers, a bouncy castle and a barbeque put on by the Downtown Rotary Club

Times have become even more difficult than usual for all Zimbabweans over the past six months, and especially difficult for the orphans.

Recently we got the following email from Thandekile Ngwenya, one of the teachers at Mzyathini. This email shows that our Interact Club’s efforts to gain support from people like you are more important than ever. Here’s what Ms. Ngwenya had to say.

“Thanks for the faith you have in us despite the hardship we are encountering at this end. It is painful to inform you that our boys and girls are now starving. There is nothing in the fields and shops in the rural areas and our Interacters are spending their free time walking to nearby farms, "nearby " being 10 km away, to buy buckets of maize to get to our orphans. We lost one of them to starvation just imagine!! The Interact Club members assisted during the funeral. What we are experiencing here is HELL!! We need Gods intervention. I’ll continue to keep in touch. Please don't give up on us we need your help now more than ever. God Bless you abundantly for what you are doing. You are now saving lives. ”

A large part of the fundraising effort locally is focused on the sale of our Interact Club’s new 2007 T-Shirts, which feature the following message.

“Over 11 million children are orphans because of AIDS. Be part of a global positive transformation. Break the cycle.Education is the most important step. Embrace Zimbabwe’s AIDS orphans. It’s your move. ”

If you would like to help our students help needy students in Zimbabwe, I encourage you to: check out their web site at www.nanaimointeract.com, order your T-Shirt ($15 each or two for $25) by emailing Nanaimo.interact@hotmail.com,or attend their Your Move Family Event on October 13 at Harbourfront Square from 11 am to 4 pm.

Now it’s your move. You know what you can do if you want to help our teenagers make a difference for other teens half way around the world.