Gilwern based charity, Love Zimbabwe, run by Martha and David Holman plan to open their library at the charities’ community centre in Chinamhora next month.

This project has been ongoing for three years now and is finally reaching completion.

Thanks to funding from The Welsh Government, The Waterloo Foundation, The Rotary club of Abergavenny and Castle Street Methodist Church the couple have managed to build the library from scratch. The project was also taken on by students from Lampeter University, who visited Zimbabwe in 2017. All the work was completed by local builders and supporters as well as the students.

The story started when Martha and David were at the community centre with their daughter, Tanaka sitting round the fire one evening with local children.

The children and adults were telling stories which is a tradition in Zimbabwe that goes back hundreds of years.

The children were asked what they would like to see at the centre that would best help them.

One child said what a great thing it would be to try to conserve these traditional stories and to be able to study Zimbabwean culture. The other children agreed and said that they would also love to have access to other books and information that were unavailable at school.

This idea grew quickly, and when they returned to Abergavenny, Martha and David set to work to raise the money needed to build the library with the help of the charity trustees.

Money came in from various organisations and work began.

The building went up over the next couple of years as funding came in bit by bit.

Once the structure was finished, the next task was to collect books together and then ship them out to Zimbabwe.

Local schools were contacted to see whether they could donate books. They were very generous, and donations were received from Llantilio Pertholey Primary School, Ysgol Gymraeg Y’Fenni, and Pontir Primary.

The appeal was also published on social media and many local people in Abergavenny donated some wonderful books.

David then contacted Lucie Parkin, the organiser of the Abergavenny Writing Festival who kindly helped to organise a funding launch for contributions.

The launch was supported by the MS for Monmouth, Nick Ramsay, the Mayor of Abergavenny, town councillors and Catherine Lewis from Abergavenny Methodist Church.

The books then had to be shipped to Zimbabwe. A mini-bus was purchased by the charity and sent to Zimbabwe packed full of books.

The library is currently being fitted out with shelving and furniture to allow the books to be placed in their new home!

A date in December is being finalised to officially open the building.