In October 2025, Bishop Stephen Wright, Bishop of Hexham and Newcastle and Chair of CAFOD, visited the remote Rushinga District in north eastern Zimbabwe. The visit was organised by CAFOD, the Church’s overseas aid and development agency, and Caritas in Zimbabwe.

After the bishops’ autumn plenary meeting, in a short video interview, Bishop Wright reflected on what he described as profound and life-changing experiences:

“I was privileged to go and visit the CAFOD projects in a very remote and poor part of Zimbabwe, in the northeast part of the country.” After a six-hour drive, half of which was on rough dirt tracks, Bishop Wright arrived at his destination.

“It’s a very rural area – there are no towns – and the first thing that strikes you is the level of poverty that people are living. For example, women and children will walk up to seven kilometres to get water. Children will walk up to 10 kilometres to go to school, and it truly breaks your heart to see them making their way to and from school – children as young as four.”

Bishop Wright continued, “It was a great privilege to see the CAFOD projects there, they were truly inspiring. I had the joy of visiting three primary schools and a maternity unit.”

CAFOD is working with the local Caritas agencies in Rushinga District to provide schools and communities with the amenities which will allow them to flourish.

Bishop Wright explained, “The first of those, and by far the most important, is access to water. Bores are drilled down to the water table, and with simple water pumps, the community has access to water, and that is life-changing for so many people. The second is to provide solar panels for electricity, and the children can even have basic computers. The third part of the programme is to provide the children, and indeed the staff, with a healthy meal each day, a very basic porridge, which is made of millet and is very nutritious.”

An important element of the work which CAFOD and Caritas are doing in the local communities is to increase education and awareness about safeguarding. When women and children make these long journeys on foot, their already high vulnerability increases, and so there is a great emphasis placed on their understanding about what is appropriate behaviour towards them and what is not, raising that awareness.

Bishop Wright described how children are told to share information “both with the teachers and also with the local chief, who I was privileged to meet, and who really is a safeguarding champion in his district. The chief gave the children and gave me, too, the assurances that he would pass on any information to the local authorities and indeed the police. You can see that that is taking place.”

The local Church is also playing an important role alongside Caritas in the empowerment of local communities.

Describing his stay with the local parish priest, Bishop Wright said, “They are committed to serving the poor. It is inspiring. Jesus said we would find him in the poorest of the poor, and so we do. CAFOD speaks about nobody being beyond reach, and truly in that remote part of Zimbabwe, they are not beyond reach.”

Recalling the mission of Caritas to serve the poor regardless of their age, belief or background, Bishop Wright said, “What you can see is the love of the Lord being shared with others and you can see in those small steps the huge impact that it has on the life of others.”

As well as learning about the work of CAFOD and Caritas at the grassroots, Bishop Wright described the visit as a profound and life-changing experience.

“I’ve never experienced poverty in a developing country like I experienced in Rushinga. It was simultaneously heart-breaking to see the poverty that these people live with, but also full of hope. The dignity of the people is extraordinary. The welcome and the joy of these people is extraordinary. Hope – real hope – is given to them with water, with electricity, with a good meal each day, and with the education programmes… you can see how these communities flourish. The Chief Nurse at the maternity unit that I went to took me aside and said, ‘Bishop Stephen, thank you for CAFOD’s work. I can now truly do my work as I should be able to do it.’ And that will stay with me forever.”

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