Zimbabwean schools send Christmas cards to their UK partners.

The disintegration of the Zimbabwean economy, bitter political disputes,  the collapse of food supplies and the outbreak of Cholera have not stopped teachers and children at Zimbabwean schools from making and sending Christmas cards to their partner schools in Stockton on Tees.

Gill Sangster, international co-ordinator at Norton School Humanities College, worked with her counterparts from Zimbabwe earlier in 2008 when teachers involved in a three way partnership met in Kenya. 

Staff from all three countries agreed to the Christmas card exchange but given events in Zimbabwe in the months leading up to Christmas, Gill was not expecting anything to arrive. 

But they did come - and were opened by children from UK schools on 19 December.

"The cards are beautifully decorated," Gill explained. "They are struggling to get food, never mind equipment, yet they had managed to paint us Christmas cards.  Perhaps they had not had anything to eat that day.  It is quite humbling they had managed to do that for us." 

How did they do that?

The Zimbabwean schools are taking part in the British Council's Connecting Classrooms scheme. 

John Tallac Secondary School, Magama Primary School and Thomas Coulter Primary School in Zimbabwe are part of a three-way partnership between The Norton Humanities College, Norton Primary School and Crooksbarn Primary in Stockton on Tees in the UK, and Dagoretti High School, Ayany Primary School and Moi Avenue Primary School in Kenya. 

They have called their partnership "Simunye Connecting Classrooms" which means "we are one" in Zulu.

Read the special Zimbabwe reports on the BBC News Africa website. 
Zimbabwean schools are delaying the start of the new term by two weeks following the Christmas break.
See CBBC Newsround's Zimbabwe pages for content aimed at children as well as OK to be upset by the News.

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