The Eucharistic Convention
2012
Ignatius Ngara
Ignatius is a married, God practising Catholic. He has been married to Chipo for 37 years and got sacramentally married in the Catholic Church called St Charles Lwanga Catholic Church, Torwood, Redcliff, Zimbabwe. The officiating priest was Father F. Gianini. Ignatius and Chipo have three children, namely, Ronald (born in 1974), Rodwell (born in 1978) and Audrey (born in 1984).
Ignatius,
Chipo (wife),
Ronald (first son)
Ignatius has a Masters Degree in Education (Counselling), Bachelors Degree in Education (Physics) and a Teaching Diploma. In Zimbabwe he was a teacher of Physics, Chemistry, Biology, Mathematics, Accounting and Economics. In addition, he was a part-time university lecturer in the B.Sc. Counselling programme offered by the Zimbabwe Open University.
He is currently teaching Mathematics at a Catholic School; Liston College, Henderson, Auckland, New Zealand. He is currently the Head of Mathematics Department at Liston College and is an active member of the St Vincent DePaul Society at Holy Cross Parish in Henderson.
Ignatius was born on 15 March 1951 in Zimbabwe in a small town called Redcliff. At the time of his birth, his father was an employee in the Rhodesian Iron and Steel Company (now called Zimbabwean Iron and Steel Company) at Redcliff, 18 kilometre from Kwe Kwe. Ignatius was the first child and the only boy in a family of five children. His family was one of strong Catholic faith, endorsing all of the Catholic traditions and teachings. In 1965 Ian Douglas Smith, the then Prime Minister of Rhodesia, declared the Unilateral Declaration of Independence for Rhodesia and Great Britain responded by imposing sanctions on Rhodesia. As a result, many companies in the then Rhodesia either closed or restructured their operations. The Rhodesian Iron and Steel Company restructured its operations and many people were declared redundant. Ignatius’s father is one of the many employees who lost their jobs due to the restructuring that took place. Ignatius’s family decided to go to a rural home in Gokwe, a place 140km west of Kwe Kwe. In 1965, Gokwe was underdeveloped and did not have any schools that offered upper-primary education. Most schools in the area offered primary education up to Standard 3 (five years of primary school education). Ignatius in 1965 was in Standard 5. No school in the remote area of Gokwe could offer him a place to do Standard 5.
Ignatius remembers telling his parents not to worry about his welfare or education. All he requested from his parents was that they take care of his sisters and then requested for bus fare to go back to Redcliff to continue with his education. He started fending for himself at that crucial formative stage.
When he went back to Redcliff, he found it hard to make ends meet. He went from door to door in the then ‘white suburbs’ asking for small jobs; to do gardening or to do any job that was available. He ended up doing all sorts of jobs including; growing roses for sale, feeding horses, making laying batteries for hens. For the jobs he was paid an average of 20 pence per day. He worked every day of the week. During school days he started work after school and worked until late. During holidays, he used to work every day of the week without a break. To him there was neither Sunday nor Saturday. All he was concerned with was earning enough to pay for his education, his food and rent. Between the years 1966 and1967 Zimbabwe experienced drought and there weren’t enough gardening jobs offered to him. That was the most difficult period for Ignatius. At times Ignatius would go for days without food. One day in 1967 he fainted during a Metalwork lesson. When he was taken to the hospital in Torwood, they discovered that Ignatius had collapsed due to hunger. He was back to normal after eating a meal in the hospital. One of the old man who used to serve food to the ill promised to give Ignatius a plate of food from any of the very sick patients who could not eat. This worked for a few days until that arrangement was discovered by the old man’s seniors. The old man was fired from his job for reserving a plate of food for Ignatius. This devastated Ignatius and he continue to blame himself for the old man’s loss of a job. He could not bear the suffering he had brought to the old man and his family. Ignatius remembers running away from the people around and going into the woods to cry out and pray to GOD. From there on he found it difficult to trust anyone except GOD. Time and again he would go out in the bush to cry to GOD for help. Interestingly, he never thought of stealing and resisted peer pressure. He developed a strong philosophy that helped him fight temptations. For instance, at adolescence, when his peers pressured him to smoke or drink beer he would say, “If I start now, where am I going to get money to buy the next packet of cigarettes or bottle of beer?”. He resisted the temptation to drink beer and the temptation to smoke right from an early age.
He continued to fend for himself and at one time suffered from malnutrition due to lack of constant balanced meals. There is one time in 1966 when he was thrown out into the streets at night (roughly 10:00 pm), by his landlord, because he had failed to raise enough rent for the month. With nowhere to go, Ignatius went to the Community Hall in the compound and broke a window pane to gain access into the hall. He slept in the hall for that night and in the morning he hid his few possessions and went to school. When he came back from school his possessions had been stolen. He was left with no blanket, no extra shirt or short. The only clothes he had were the ones he was wearing. Fortunately, one kind family, the Mr and Mrs Pendeke, accepted to provide him with shelter until he had enough money to pay the requisite rent. With the little money he had he was able to buy one blanket which he used to wrap himself up in during the cold nights. As for clothes, he only had the clothes that were on his body. When the clothes got dirty, he would wait until it was mid-night and go out and wash them and then dry them over a fire by hanging them on a chair. One day the short caught fire when he was fast asleep. Part of the shirt and the chair were also burnt. In the morning Ignatius remained wrapped in the blanket for the whole day because he had nothing to put on. His friend Paul Magosvongwe came to find out why Ignatius had not turned up for school. The next day Paul brought rags for Ignatius to wear and Ignatius went to school in those rags. As soon as Ignatius entered the classroom all the students, including the teacher started laughing at him and Ignatius collapsed in front of the whole class crying. Later on Paul took him out and the teacher Mr Svikiro, that same day, bought Ignatius a short and a shirt with his own money. Ignatius demanded that he should do some work for him in his garden as part payment for the generosity.
Ignatius enrolled at Drake Secondary School in Redcliff to start secondary school education in 1967. He continued to fend for himself since he did not have sponsors. He continued to do small jobs to support himself financially. After two years of secondary school education, Ignatius won a prestigious scholarship from the Rhodesian Iron and Steel Company (RISCO) to go and study at Bernard Mizeki College, Marondera which was the highest fee paying school for blacks. It was run as a private school.
Ignatius(on left), pictured 2nd Prize
winner Colias (on the right) and 3rd Prize
winner Calvin (standing) soon after Ignatius was awarded the RISCO
scholarship
He obtained top marks in the Cambridge O Level Examinations in 1970 and was offered a place at Fletcher High School to study Physics, Mathematics , Chemistry and Biology at Advanced Level. Unfortunately, he could not take the offer because he had no sponsorship. By the end of 1967 the Rhodesian Iron and Steel Company had changed its policy and were no longer giving scholarships to children of parents who were not employed by the company. He was disappointed to lose the opportunity but to his surprise he received an invitation from Gweru Teachers College to train as a Science teacher although he had not applied for the position. He accepted the offer and he strongly believed that it was the work of GOD. After completing the teacher training he was invited backed to Bernard Mizeki to teach Mathematics, Physics, Chemistry up to O Level. After three years of teaching at Bernard Mizeki, he was promoted to the position of Head of Mathematics Department at Drake Secondary School, in Redcliff. After three years as Head of Department for Mathematics at Drake Secondary School, he was promoted to the position of Headmaster for Rio Tinto Zhombe High School in April 1980. At Rio Tinto Zhombe High School he served up to end of 1981 and then he was transferred to Rio Tinto Mhondoro High School, a new school that was starting in1982. Both schools were in the rural areas of Zimbabwe. Rio Tinto Foundation, a trustee’s board for Rio Tinto Mining, Zimbabwe built these schools in rural areas in an effort to help the government develop the disadvantaged rural areas.
In 1983, while heading Rio Tinto Mhondoro High School, Ignatius enrolled with University of Zimbabwe to study Physics as a part-time student for three years. He graduated in1985.
In the first two years of being Headmaster at Rio Tinto Mhondoro High School, the school was judged to be the best administered secondary school and as a result, the Headmaster and the school received the Ministry of Education Secretary’s Merit Award for the year 1983.
News paper article on Secretary of Education Merit award
The award motivated both the staff and the Headmaster to find ways of helping students that were financially disadvantaged, especially students orphaned due to the AIDS pandemic. Due to his determination to providing financial assistance to the orphaned students and putting trust in GOD, he was able to establish links with a school in Germany called Elsa Brandstrom-Reaschule, in Rheine, Germany. Through the partnership, the Aids orphans at Rio Tinto Mhondoro High School received aid from Germany to cover fees and uniform. To ensure that support for orphans continued after Ignatius had left the area, a Rio Beager Foundation was established and it is still giving financial support to Aids orphans. In addition, through Rheinold Hemker, a MP for Rheine, the German Government of Nordrheine –Westfalen donated A-Level Science equipment worth 500 000DM. Since the aid was from a Government, the President of Zimbabwe, Robert Mugabe received the equipment on behalf of Rio Tinto Mhondoro High School. Again, the equipment for Physics, Chemistry and Biology was meant to help disadvantaged students in their study of science subjects.
Because of Ignatius’ focus on helping the disadvantaged students, especially students orphaned through the Aids pandemic in Zimbabwe, British Council awarded him a scholarship to study Counselling at the University of Newcastle Upon Tyne in the North East of England. After completing his Masters Degree in Counselling he went back to Zimbabwe, as an Education Officer in charge of Guidance and Counselling. He initiated a counselling programme for schools that focused on ‘peer-education’ in Aids Awareness Education . During his research in schools in United Kingdom, he noted that students learned better and faster from their peers rather than from their teachers. In Mashonaland West Region, he established ‘peer-counselling’ committees in each secondary school, both urban and rural, and mounted workshops to impart basic counselling skills to students so that that they could educate their peers on Aids. He got financial aid from a Swedish Non-Governmental Organisation, through Schools Psychological Services, Zimbabwe. Each committee consisted of student representatives from each year level and one teacher per school was identified to coordinate the activities of the committee. The programme was a resounding success and Ignatius published an article about his Guidance and Counselling programme in the British Journal of Pastoral Care in Education, in the December 1999 edition.
During his term of office, as Education Officer, he was called upon to go and resolve issues between the Acting Head of Jameson High School and the Parents Teachers Association (PTA) chairman. The appointment of Ignatius as a care-taker Head helped resolve all the issues and harmony was restored. Apart from resolving the issues between the two he went on to establish a partnership with a school in Germany called Maxilian-Kolbe-Gesamtschule, Saerbeck, Germany. Again, the focus of the aid received was to support and facilitate the education of the disadvantaged. A Sixth Form Centre was built and furnished. The centre was used for studies by students who were financially poor and those that could not afford a computer at home.
In 1999, Ignatius was appointed District Education Director for Chegutu District and relinquished that post after the 2002 Zimbabwean’s Presidential elections. After resigning from his post his family took to praying every night and Ignatius went back to using the skills he learnt in the formative stages of his development, i.e., gardening. With the Lord’s blessings he was able to make more income from gardening than he used to earn when he was District Education Director. However, his field of interest was teaching and he sent applications for teaching jobs, through the internet, to every Commonwealth country. He was happy to be appointed as Science teacher in July 2003 at Liston College. His wife followed to New Zealand in December 2004.
In 2004 Ignatius joined the St Vincent DePaul Society at Holy Cross Parish in Henderson, again to continue with the work that supports the needy. He is still a member of the St Vincent DePaul Society at Holy Cross Parish in Henderson up to today.
When his wife and daughter moved to New Zealand the house they owned in Kadoma, Zimbabwe was used to accommodate six Aids orphans from Kadoma. Up to this day the house is still being used to house orphans. The last orphans in the Kadoma house complete their tertiary education at the end of 2011. When St Vincent DePaul Society Conference at Holy Cross Parish volunteered to help Ignatius by giving support to the orphans living in Ignatius’s house, Ignatius responded by requesting the the conference to, instead, support Aids orphans in the greater part of Kadoma rather than support the orphans under Ignatius’s care. As a result, St James Catholic Parish in Kadoma was requested by Ignatius to set up a Committee that would identify needy Aids orphans in Kadoma. The parish priest for St James Catholic Church, Father Chifeya, was requested by Ignatius to preside over the Committee; a job he did well until he was transferred from Kadoma.
Father Chifeya with Committee members and orphans being supported
by St Vincent DePaul Society Henderson
Ignatius believes that his faith has never failed him through his life. In 1980 Ignatius was diagnosed with a condition called Ulcerative Colitis. He was put on corticosteroids; Predisone for a few months then was put on salazopyrin (sulfasalazin) for the period December 1980 up to 2003. During that period, Ignatius received financial assistance from his friends in Germany to cover medical expenses in South Africa when he was admitted at a private hospital in Pretoria. Since 2003 he has not suffered a relapse. Ignatius believes that prayers, with the Lord’s intervention, cured this disease. To him the cure was a miracle and this belief has further deepened his faith. He is convinced that “nothing will ever fail if you believe in the Lord”
For the period Ignatius has been teaching at Liston College, i.e., from July 2003 up to 2011, Ignatius has received two awards from Liston College, namely, “Teacher of the Year Award” in 2008 and “Teacher of the Year Award” in 2010.