Women’s League angles for projects

Rumbidzayi Zinyuke Manicaland Bureau
Zanu-PF’s Manicaland provincial Women’s League has identified various business ventures designed to empower women.

Speaking at a the wing’s gathering recently, provincial Women’s League chairperson, Cde Happiness Nyakuedzwa, said they had identified a farm where a cattle rearing project would be undertaken.

“We have pushed the issue for a farm in the province and it is now available for us,” she said. “It is a cattle ranch. Currently, we don’t have any animals there, but soon there will be some.”

Cde Nyakuedzwa said it was important for all women to take part in income-generating projects to ensure that their attention was not diverted by fly-by-night political parties.

“We urge women at cell level to do empowerment projects because if we don’t empower them, those fly-by-night parties will lure them with goodies and grab them from under our noses,” she said.

“We need to give them something to do so that they are not swayed to other parties.

“They will know that even when they go to party meetings and rallies, they have something to come back to in the evening — a vegetable garden to attend to, or a chicken project to run.

“We want progressive women who are not afraid of hard work.”

Cde Nyakuedzwa said there were several other projects that women in the province had already taken up, including the chicken rearing projects being funded by mobile telecommunications company, NetOne.

“The chickens are doing well and women have been passing them on to each other as agreed, but there has been a few, who wanted to keep them to themselves and we have always encouraged them to pass the chickens on, to benefit everyone in the districts,” she said.

“We also have cross-border traders, who have been receiving training, so that they can approach their trade as business ventures that are profitable.”

Cde Nyakuedzwa said the Manicaland Women’s League had also identified a place in Mutare for horticulture producers from Honde Valley to sell their fruits and vegetables.

The Women’s League’s empowerment agenda complements Government efforts towards increased food production under Command Agriculture, which has been expanded to include livestock, soya beans and wheat.