admin
Karen Maturure Correspondent
As climate variability and resulting drought conditions continue to plague Nyanga district in Manicaland, Covid-19 has also added to the socio- economic challenges faced by local communities.
More specifically, their income sources have been severely affected with spill over effects to their social development at household level.
However, not all hope is lost as some of the Nyanga community members are working collectively to survive in the unfavourable climatic conditions.
The Kuwirirana Youth Group has become a shining example of such work.
The group comprises of 10 adolescent girls and young women (AGYW) and three men.
The young men and women formed Kuwirirana Youth Group in 2017 after the realisation that they needed to solve challenges that confronted their community.
They needed to be in control of their own environment and not wait for external help.
To achieve this, they had to find their own solutions to the needs of their communities.
After endless job searches, the group founders decided to do something meaningful whilst working on creating employment for other young people.
The group’s chairperson, Tatenda Marwenze, said they realised that pollution related livestock deaths were on the rise and they needed to do something about it.
“We started carrying out a lot of voluntary work and we would do regular clean up campaigns at Sedze Business Centre, in local schools and even clinics. We were being laughed at and criticised by others of our age, but we were not deterred by this because of the love we had for our community.
“That is when the ZRBF noticed our efforts to positively change our environment, and they came in to strengthen our group by training us to be seasoned Community Champions.
“With Programme for Growth and Resilience (PROGRESS) we were capacitated in terms of Village Savings and Loans Associations (VSLAs), small poultry production, and business skills among other trainings”, said Marwenze.
The Kuwirirana group was identified by PROGRESS in 2018 and received funding and inputs in 2019.
The group was trained as youth champions.
Through experience gained from livestock rearing training, the group wrote a successful proposal on chickens resulting in PROGRESS giving them chickens and materials to build a fowl run.
The group also received trainings on mechanisation recently and are looking forward to receiving peanut butter making machines to expand their activities and sources of income.
Added Marwenze: “We were not given everything. However, because we had been trained on VSLAs we were able to pay the builder and buy other remaining materials from our savings.”
Through various trainings and other support from PROGRESS, the group has reared and sold over 450 chickens (100 birds per batch).
The recently sold batch comprised of just 50 birds as the group was hedging against losses that had resulted from Covid-19 induced lockdown as they struggled to access their usual markets.
The group has made extra effort to market their products as a way of expanding their local market base.
The Kuwirirana group also used their income (in local currency) to purchase goats for each member to cushion against the challenges associated with the unstable local currency and avoid any significant losses.
The she goats already had their first batch of kids and now expecting a second batch.
To hedge against the current liquidity crunch; instead of their usual cash sales; the group was exchanging their chickens with maize.
Using their profits from the chickens they had sold, the group had managed to construct two fowl runs at two of the members’ homesteads and this will be done for all the 10 members.
The group has a robust management structure and they have a duty roster for their activities.
They are also working on officially registering their group as a cooperative.
“Our lives are now way better thanks to the PROGRESS project.
“As women our various income generating activities have enabled us to cater for our children’s school fees, and we can now buy anything we want without waiting for our husbands.
“Now levels of gender based violence are lower because as you know conflict at household level comes as a result of financial squabbles when sources of income are limited.
“The community also benefits from our organic broilers as we use organic feed.”
The group looks forward to expanding their business further.
“They hope to register a butchery that supplies not only their local community but develop new markets in the next five years.
Online Reporter