daniel chigunweLIFE is not always rosy for parents who take care of children with disabilities.
Often, they are mocked, accused of witchcraft, hated, discriminated and stigmatised just because of the fruits of the womb — their children with disabilities.
In most cases, the mothers cannot engage in income generating projects as their children require attention.
Others may end up locking children with disabilities indoors as they go out for work.
These mothers have not been spared from the effects of climate change and the Covid-19 pandemic which has worsened their situations.
This has prompted the Zimbabwe Parents of Handicapped Children Association (ZPHCA) to implement resilience programmes for women and girls living in rural, peri-urban and urban areas to improve their livelihoods and reduce their vulnerability.
‘Soldier mothers’ who are taking care of their children with disabilities are grateful for the support that they are getting from the ZPHCA.
ZPHCA programmes co-ordinator Ms Theresa Makwara said climate change remained the most pressing challenge outside poverty and the current Covid-19 pandemic in Zimbabwe.
The organisation empowered the mothers with skills so they could manage their agricultural activities and market value chain.
“The burden of taking care of children with disabilities lies in the hands of women, therefore, we saw it fit to empower them on livelihood skills such that they are not found begging on the streets,” said Ms Makwara.
“Some parents of children with disabilities do not have stable jobs and incomes and, therefore, rely on manual work and may have difficulties providing for the young ones.
“Children with disabilities need to be looked after 24/7 and this obstructs their mothers from improving their education and get the so-called ‘white collar’ jobs (working in offices).
“After observing that, we managed to introduce the Climate Resilience Model of training these women on smart agriculture, value addition and marketing of their products in their locality.”
Ms Makwara said the country had been experiencing re-current droughts which affected yields since the year 2000, resulting in severe food insecurity, hunger, malnutrition and deprivation.
“Women and girls living in rural, peri-urban and urban areas are the most risk group since their livelihoods are primarily depended on agriculture,” she said.
“Grassroots women have endured loss of income, travelling long distances in search of water and broadly lost employment across the agricultural value chain.
“Through these training we are seeing several women earning a living. They are now empowered because they can grow groundnuts and make peanut butter for sale. The women have also ventured into bee keeping and vegetable processing; drying for future use.
“Value addition of agricultural produce is very important in the upgrading of the country’s economy and for self-sustenance.”
Ms Makwara said the Climate Change Resilience Building Model was established in 2017 and had grown steadily over the years from 60 members to more than 460 members from Harare, Chitungwiza, Dema Rural, Seke, Domboshawa, Epworth, Caledonia, Lafarge, Mabvuku, Mufakose, Highfield and Hopley, among other strategic communities.
She said the organisation had been harnessing the collective voices of grassroots women affected by climate change and engaging stakeholders as a way of finding lasting practical home-grown and women centred solutions.
“We are training these women such that they can be in a position to prepare for early disaster warning and reduce risks that are associated with climate change issues,” said Ms Makwara.
“The disasters include drought, floods, earthquakes and diseases like Covid-19, among others. Through nutritional gardens, health can be restored because they are growing fruit trees and making jam from fruits, including the indigenous Masau fruit to maximise incomes.”
Mrs Lorraine Musonza of Dema Village, Seke, said she managed to send her children to school and build good houses using proceeds from selling peanut butter and poultry projects.
“We are getting a profit of US$150 — US$200 through this project, therefore, as parents of children with disabilities we cannot complain because our livelihoods have improved. We can manage to provide for our children and they are also eating nutritious food,” she said.
Loveness Matapo of Chitungwiza said it was not proper for parents to go around parading their children with disabilities as baggers.
“ZHPCA has brought salvation to our lives because gender-based violence has been reduced. We used to ask for money from our husbands and this was the major cause for domestic violence in our societies,” she said.
Ms Loice Ndoro of Mabvuku said she was into a poultry project where she sells live and frozen chickens in the area.
This, she said, had improved her income.
“My son has a disability, therefore, this project is good for me because I take care of him through the proceeds,” she said.
“There is no need for me to travel long distances looking for customers because I just put a poster at my gate when the chickens are ready for sell and the clients can just walk in.”
ZPHCA field officer, Mrs Nyasha Makiwa, said their organisation needed more support from the Government and other stakeholders so that they could expand the projects.
“Some of the challenges that affect our projects include lack of information on climate change, limited access to vocational training, increasing occurrence and severity of disasters such as Covid-19, droughts, and high competition for resilience building livelihoods products at local and national markets, lack of storage facilities such as refrigeration, processing and value addition equipment for resilience building products,” she said.
Mrs Makiwa expressed concern over lack of financial support for grassroots women.
The vision of the association is to create a society for all regardless of one’s nature of disability and creating an enabling environment where parents and guardians of children with disabilities develop knowledge for positive upkeep of their children and young adults with disabilities.
Online Reporter