Online Reporter
Theseus Mauruki Shambare
Features Writer
IN Hopley, on the southern edge of Harare, a certificate does not end a journey; it begins one.
At Tariro Clinic, where 120 young people recently graduated under ActionAid Zimbabwe’s Dignified Lives and Decent Livelihoods (DTV) programme, the ceremony carried the weight of expectation as much as celebration.
The applause was loud. But so too were the ambitions that followed.
For many of the graduates, the question was not whether the training mattered, but how quickly it could be turned into something tangible.
Natasha Madhaure holds her certificate in baking as a starting point rather than a conclusion.
“It is not just a qualification,” she said. “It is something I can use to start something for myself.”
Nearby, Ivy Tinotenda Maweni speaks with a quiet certainty. Trained in agriculture using biological methods rather than synthetic fertilisers, she is already thinking in terms of land, soil and production.
“I want my own land one day,” she said. “A small farm where I can practise what I learnt.”
For Tinashe Muredzwa, one of the male graduates in dressmaking, the focus is immediate: finding a place in a competitive informal economy.
“I just want to design and sell my work,” he said.
Their stories sit within a wider transition unfolding in Hopley, where training is increasingly becoming a bridge into informal enterprise rather than a final qualification.
Hopley is often described through the language of lack, but on the ground, it is also a place of constant economic activity.
On its edges, informal structures double as shops, workshops and homes.
Income is rarely fixed, but activity is continuous — piece jobs, vending, small services and household-based production.
It is into this environment that ActionAid Zimbabwe, with support from ActionAid Denmark and implementing partners, introduced the DTV programme.
Rather than treating training as an endpoint, the programme positioned it as an entry point into economic activity.
The 120 graduates were trained in baking, catering, horticulture, poultry production and dressmaking, alongside Friendship Bench volunteers, who provide psychosocial support within the same community ecosystem.
ActionAid Zimbabwe Country Director Dr Selina Pasirayi said the graduation marked both achievement and transition.
“These are not abstract pieces of paper,” she said. “They are the foundations of livelihoods, small enterprises, household incomes and independence.”
She said the programme responds to the reality that skills on their own are not enough unless they connect to opportunity.
Across development practice, this gap between training and economic entry remains one of the most persistent challenges, where young people complete training but struggle to access tools, capital or markets to begin production.
To address this, ActionAid introduced a Youth Hub model in Hopley, designed as a shared production and innovation space.
Instead of requiring graduates to immediately acquire their own equipment, the model provides access to fully equipped facilities such as baking kitchens, dressmaking studios, greenhouses and poultry units.
It is an approach that shifts the focus from ownership to access, allowing young people to begin producing, earning and learning within the same space.
For programme officials, the principle is straightforward: if entry barriers are too high, reduce them. For many graduates, the transition is already taking shape in small but visible ways.
Natasha imagines beginning with home-based baking and local sales, building gradually as demand grows. Ivy is considering how biological farming methods can work even in limited or shared spaces while she works towards accessing land. Tinashe is exploring how to position his designs within a crowded but active informal fashion market.
Their pathways are different, but they share a common shift: from learning to doing.
Women’s Rights and Economic Justice Manager Ruvimbo Nhunhama said the programme is designed to move young people towards practical independence.
“These skills are tools that can open doors and create opportunities,” she said. “We encourage graduates to continue building on what they have learnt.”
She said the real measure of success lies not in graduation day, but in what follows it.
What emerges in Hopley is not a single outcome, but a network of small economic beginnings.
Bakers entering home industries and street markets. Tailors responding to demand in informal fashion spaces. Agriculture trainees exploring urban and peri-urban production. Psychosocial volunteers strengthening community resilience alongside economic activity.
These trajectories are still forming, but they are no longer theoretical — they are already in motion.
As certificates were handed over at Tariro Clinic, two realities existed side by side.
One was structured: training, partners, facilities and systems designed to support transition. The other was personal: individual effort, adaptation and the search for opportunity within an informal economy.
Neither stands alone.
The programme provides a platform and graduates provide the momentum.
The ceremony ended with speeches, photographs and applause.
But in Hopley, the more important moments will unfold elsewhere — in kitchens where baking begins, in rooms where sewing machines are switched on, and in small ventures testing their first customers.
The certificates mark completion. What follows is application.
And in that space between the two, a new generation of young people is already beginning to define what their skills are worth — not in theory, but in practice.
In Hopley, graduation is not an ending. It is simply the moment work begins.
