For CHIPAWO the Old Year was a year of Northern contrasts. Just as in the North the Summer fades as Autumn strips it bare, ushering in the icy embrace of Winter only to give way after long and hard endurance to the flowers and the life-giving showers of Spring so here in Zimbabwe in March and April - autumn in the southern hemisphere - CHIPAWO was stripped bare by the drying up of institutional support and the stagnation of the market. There followed a winter of survival and defiance at the lowest level of its existence. However though income never really improved and calamaties continued to occur - the burning down of the Yellow Bus, the theft of the main CHIPAWO computer with all its documents and archives, the near fatal crash of the Kombi taking staff to Dotito for a training workshop and the theft of its best camera, the Sony PD170 - by the end of the year it was possible to say that in more ways than one, CHIPAWO had had an extraordinary year.

We are frenetically preparing for the CHIPAWO Harare Junior Theatre's participation in the 11th World Festival of Children's Theatre in Lingen, Germany, later this month. There is a Farewell Gala Performance of the festival play at the Zimbabwe College of Music at 6pm, Monday 14th June. All friends of CHIPAWO are cordially invited to attend and see our children off on their great adventure.