Since 2011, Fredrik Eklund has played a significant role in changing the lives of children, families and whole communities in Zimbabwe, a country in southern Africa, which is the birth place and childhood home of Fredrik’s husband Derek Kaplan.

Working with the charity Zimbabwe’s Children, Fredrik and Derek started by providing a very remote and forgotten elementary school with clean water – immediately transforming the health and well-being of thousands of families and young children in the nearby community, who were suffering and in some cases, dying from severely contaminated water.

However, their generous philanthropy did not stop there – over the next 5 years they donated generous amounts to give access to education for orphan and vulnerable children, building classrooms, supporting families with entrepreneur projects, building homes for elderly grandmothers whose own children had died from HIV/AIDS and had been left with young grandchildren to care for, providing a feeding program in schools so all children had a healthy meal every day and the development of sanitation facilities so girls did not have to miss school.

Very recently their generosity was rewarded when the end of year exam results revealed that many of the children sponsored by Fredrik and Derek passed their exams with high marks.  Those children would not have had the chance if it wasn’t for them.  Child marriage/labour and malnutrition would have been their only life course without continuing in education.

“This is only one piece of evidence out of many that shows how these gentlemen have given light, hope and entirely changed the life of Zimbabwean children, who would otherwise have been forgotten.” says, Sharon Thompson from the Zimbabwe Children Foundation.