by Sofia Mapuranga

People living with HIV (PLWHIV) in urban areas are appealing to the government to allocate them residential stands because they are being discriminated against by their landlords because of their HIV status, reports SOFIA MAPURANGA.

PLWHIV in suburbs such as Budiriro, Chitungwiza, Glen Norah, Mabvuku and Glen View told The Zimbabwean of some of the challenges they face at the hands of their landlords, some of whom even give them timetables to use the toilet.

“I am not allowed to use the toilet any time that I want because my landlord believes that because of the water challenges, I may not be able to perfectly clean the toilet,” said Getrude Mukanga from Chitungwiza.

“She prefers that I use the toilet first thing in the morning and she ensures that I clean it thoroughly before she allows her family, especially her children, to use it.”

In December 2012 The National Aids Council reported that an estimated 1,2 million people were living with HIV. Zimbabwe is one of the few African countries that has over the years managed to reduce the HIV infection rate by 50%.

But PLWHIV face a myriad of challenges, including lack of access to quality and affordable treatment, social services, basic healthcare, education and other socio-economic rights.

Institutionalised stigma

Emmanuel Gasa, the Executive Director of The AIDS and Arts Foundation, said government should put up policies to guard against discrimination of PLWHIV. “The problem in Zimbabwe is that we now have institutionalised stigma and the systems are not conducive for those living positively,” said Gasa. “There should be cluster specific allocation of accommodation. We will take this with reservations because it can also be used by others to discriminate against people living with HIV,” he added.

He urged young people to open up and reveal their status as a way of dealing with stigma and discrimination saying such a move would ensure a responsible future generation who are able to stand up for what they represent.

Fair share

“In other countries such as South Africa, young people who are living with HIV are open and they get their fair share of resources based on their status,” he said, adding that poverty and discrimination of PLWHIV has remained a major challenge in Zimbabwe and lack of accommodation affected their well-being. The national housing backlog is estimated at 1,2 million applicants, a figure government says could soar if a proper survey was conducted.

Gasa urged government to come up with interventions and ensure that PLWHIV were allocated affordable residential stands. Trymore Chiswa, who resides in Glen Norah, said the discrimination suffered at the hands of her landlord is affecting her children who are restricted to their two rooms and are not allowed to interact with the landlord’s children. “The assumption is that my children are living with HIV because they are not allowed anywhere near my landlord’s children although as children, they would want to play together,” she said.

Affordable

Chipo Vhiriri, 39 from Budiriro urged government to address accommodation challenges for PLWHIV saying that because the majority of them were living under difficult circumstances, they should be allocated affordable accommodation as stipulated in the new Constitution.

“Local Government Minister Ignatius Chombo last year set up timelines and said he would avail residential stands for urbanites but to date, nothing has materialised,” she said.

No progress

“Government should seriously reconsider the plight of PLWHIV because we are sometimes forced to disclose our status because of the circumstances that we are living under, something which is being used against us in the long run.”

Chombo last year revealed that government had engaged a Chinese firm, Henan Guoji, to build 10,000 low-cost houses in a move aimed at curbing the scourge of homelessness in cities and towns. However, to date, there is no information regarding the progress of the project. Efforts to get a comment from Chombo were futile as his mobile was not answered. Chapter 28 of the Constitution obliges government to ensure the provision of adequate shelter to its citizens.

Mabvuku resident, Chanise Mhosva said she was not allowed to get water from the borehole sunk by her landlord. “The borehole is kept under lock and key and we are not allowed to get water from it. My landlord said she is not comfortable because she fears that she may contract diseases if we use the same well,” she said.

Lois Mazikana, a social worker in Budiriro said PLWHIV faced a lot of challenges and the majority of them were indirectly forced to disclose their status. “We have witnessed a lot of cases where people who are living with HIV are cornered to disclose their status. We offer them support on how they can best integrate into society, regardless of their circumstances,” said Mazikana.

She said PLWHIV need support and should not be discriminated against based on their status. “The majority of them cannot afford to own houses and they should be allocated affordable residential stands so that they are better positioned to lead decent lives,” she said.

Mabvuku residents have been hit by another deadly diarrhoea outbreak which has infected more than 900 people with women and children being the worst affected.

This was revealed from our community monitoring report for the week ending Saturday the 21st of June by our ward coordinators. Mabvuku Poly Clinic recorded 530 cases with Mabvuku Satellite Clinic recording 372 patients by midday Thursday last week and the situation indicates that more people are still trickling at the health centres for medical check-ups.

A quick survey conducted revealed that the outbreak emanates from the inefficient supply of clean water and the use of unprotected water sources by residents.

Residents suspect that the outbreak emerged after municipal water supply resumed last week in areas that had not been receiving municipal water for more than eight months which could be attributed to rusting infrastructure.

CHRA is in possession of records of some people who have been treated of diarrhoea at Mabvuku Clinic which were randomly collected from houses in different areas in the suburb. Meanwhile Council clinics are giving chlorine tablets to treat the “dirty” water supplied to them by the municipality, a scenario which could be an indicator that the Municipality acknowledges that the water being supplied to residents is not safe.

Efforts to get information and comments from the Public Relations Department of the City of Harare were fruitless as their phones went unanswered and recent correspondence with the department head Mr Leslie Gwindi has failed to bear positive fruits pertaining access to public information.

In previous months, we reported that Diarrheal outbreaks were becoming endemic in Mabvuku, a statement which was solidly refuted by the City officials. We will continue to conduct community monitoring on health and publish our findings for purposes of saving lives of innocent residents which continue to be compromised by inefficient service delivery.

Rural community meetings, such as one held recently in Mpudzi Resettlement Scheme south of Mutare, are usually placid affairs dealing with mundane matters. Not any more.

by Andrew Mambondiyani

In the province, known for its highlands, good rains and rich soils, the meetings have increasingly taken on a belligerent edge, due to the influx of land invaders settling upstream and clogging water sources.

This is largely the consequence of climate change-induced migration as new settlers leave their low-lying dry regions for areas with better rains and prospects for agriculture.

The Mpudzi meeting almost degenerated into a mass brawl, as villagers accused local traditional leaders of illegally settling newcomers in undesignated areas and threatening the livelihoods of the original communities. Some of the illegal settlers have been irregularly resettled or allocated themselves land on areas set aside for grazing.

Choked with silt

“We no longer have pastures for our livestock and most of the rivers around here are now drying up halfway through the dry season. These rivers used to be perennial but these people are choking them with silt,” one visibly angry village elder, Nekias Mkwindidza said.

But Hamudi Munyama, a former assistant to Village Head Gwaku in Mpudzi Resettlement Scheme, who was fingered in the illegal land deals, defended himself saying that traditional leaders had the authority to resettle people in the area.

“What we did was above board. We were given the authority to resettle some of these people,” he said, but stopped short of saying who granted the authority, only choosing to cite ‘top people’. It did emerge that some of these illegal allocations of land happened just before the 2013 general elections with the blessings of local political leaders.

Munyama has since been relieved of his duties as a representative of the village head.

Major drivers

The conflict in Mpudzi Resettlement scheme is symptomatic of an emerging, climate change-induced problem, according to a 2011 United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) report, which identifies environmental degradation and climate change as major drivers in both forced and voluntary migration.

Climate change threatens to cause one of the biggest refugee crises of all time, though various figures have been bandied about, climate change experts have warned that up to 200 million people would be forced to abandon their homes over the course of the century the world over.

And in an interview with this reporter recently, renowned USA-based climate change expert and author, Ross Gelbspan weighed in, warning that: “As we experience more crop failures, water shortages and uncontrolled migrations by people whose lands become less able to support them, that governments will become more totalitarian in their efforts to keep order in the face of chaos. So it's really the political and economic aspects that I've been thinking about.”

Farmer’s dream

Owning a piece of land where there is perennial water supply, rich soils and reliable rainfall is every farmer’s dream. As such, Lloyd Gweshe, 30, a settler at Ndorwe area in the eastern highlands of Manicaland province, has every right to blow his own trumpet. His piece of land is every farmer’s dream. It has perennial water supply from various streams and rivers which originate from the area and the soils are good.

The Eastern Highlands, which stretch from Nyanga in the north through Vumba down to Chimanimani in the south, prides itself for having some of the best weather conditions in the country. These include high rainfall, low level cloud and heavy mists and dew as moisture moves inland from the Indian Ocean. Many streams and rivers begin from these mountains, which form the watershed between the Zambezi and Save River systems.

But as the climate is changing, the area has become a target for thousands of illegal settlers from lower and hotter areas. The mass movement of people has brewed conflict as the illegal and legal settlers fight over pastures, water and other resources. Timber plantations and national parks have not been spared either.

“I now own a rich piece of land, a wife and a bouncing baby,” Gweshe crows to anyone who cares to listen to him, mostly at traditional beer drinking spots. But what he seldom reveals is that he is one of the many people who have of late invaded the eastern highlands in search of water and good soils. The local people call these new comers ‘squatters’, a disparaging term which the new settlers detest.

Not a squatter

“I am not a squatter,” Gweshe defends himself when the subject of illegal settlers in the area is raised. “How can I be a squatter in my country of birth?” he asks sarcastically, much to the chagrin of the people who were legally resettled in the area by the government during the land reform programme. “And I will not leave this place,” he vows.

Many of the illegal settlers have invaded Nyamakari and Nyamataka river sources, wetlands and banks of Chitora, Mushaamhuru and Murare rivers, threatening the livelihoods of hundreds of thousands of people living downstream who depend on the rivers for irrigation.

And the future of the rich banana farming belt in Burma Valley looks bleak as water sources are diminishing, particularly during the dry season as Manyera, Zonwe and Musapa dams have been heavily silted. There are growing fears that the new wave of mass movement of people from lower dry areas to the rich highlands might trigger serious clashes.

A banana farmer in Burma Valley, who spoke on condition of anonymity for fear of reprisals from the illegal settlers, said the ‘squatters’ were threatening the viability of agricultural activities in the rich farming area.

No water

“These illegal settlers have invaded sources of water for the banana plantations, and our future as farmers is under threat. Water is no longer available for us to sustain a good banana crop. Despite efforts by the government to remove them they have remained defiant. They have been evicted about four times and they have returned in bigger numbers,” the farmer revealed.

However, even with the conflict, the illegal settlers have vowed to stay as they argue that they have nowhere else to go, with some claiming that it was their ancestral land from which they were evicted back in the 1940s by the colonial administration.

They say the low-lying areas in Manicaland, such as Marange and Buhera, have been receiving erratic rainfall since the devastating drought of 1992. Crop yields have been poor, farmers have lost their livestock and water sources have dried up, hence the new wave of migration in search of greener pastures.

More than a decade old political polarisation has a become a cancer that is fast tearing apart the once united rural community thwarting development, villagers under chief Zindi in Honde Valley have bewailed.

Villagers said instead of being united for the sake of development people value political differences at the expense of development resulting in abject poverty for many. Since 2000 when the opposition MDC started to contest in election both ZANU PF and MDC have won the constituency interchangeably.

“At times MPs donate food and other things but the Chief or the headman and other villagers just say this one belongs to ZANU PF or MDC depending on who donated and you do not benefit,” bemoaned youth Joseph Mambodo of Chapinduka village.

Mambodo, who has a plantation of 750 banana fruit trees, said his wife has been working hard for years to ensure that they get water into the plantation from the nearby mountains but they are yet to benefit from the project despite their hard work. “Segregation is the major problem here. We cannot develop because of the division that is among us as a result of political differences,” said the 29-year-old Mambodo.

Speaking at a public meeting organised by the Election Resource Centre (ERC) at Zindi Primary School recently, villagers said there is need for leaders to lead by example educating communities that political differences matters less.

ZANU PF and President Robert Mugabe, who has ruled Zimbabwe since 1980, in a bid to maintain his grip on power - facing intense opposition after the birth of the MDC in 1999 led by former trade union leader Morgan Tsvangirai used land and food distribution as a political weapons dividing communities for many years.

“If we submit written petitions highlighting our grievances our local leaders here don’t submit the petitions to desired authorities because they accuse us of belonging to a certain political party,” said Tsitsi Dembaremba. She added that chief and the headman are perpetuating divisions among them emphasizing that they should not lead development programmes.

Charles Nyakunhuwa from Nyakunhuwa village under Chief Mutasa said they are sometimes sidelined from projects because the headman demands a high joining fee from them.

“These MPs during election time they come to us and ask us what we want in the area for it to develop but they don’t come back once voted into office,” said Hamutsari Bvitira.

Bvitira said irrigation pipes her village had requested were diverted to another group because her group was viewed to be belonging to a wrong political party.

Villagers, however, appealed to Chiefs and headmen to champion unity through encouraging communities to desist from hate speech in the wake of the continued falling apart of communities.

by Brenna Matendere Munyati

A $15,000 market gardening project was formally initiated by British Ambassador Deborah Bronnert last week.

The Gwemombe Women’s Group Initiative is located in the southern part of Shurugwi and aims to help women support their families as many have lost their husbands to disease or migration. Women living with HIV are also targeted beneficiaries.

So far, 45 families have started engaging in bee-keeping, fruit and vegetable farming. Fencing, watering mechanisms and harvesting infrastructure has been put in place with donor funding.

The National Association of Non-Governmental Organisations (NANGO) regional coordinator Vimbai Nhutsve-Musengi said it has been difficult to find partners who could help the women, and hailed the British intervention as a milestone achievement in fighting gender imbalance.

She urged the women to work hard, saying “The project should succeed in becoming a food breadbasket for the district and surrounding areas. If its success story reaches a level where mines in the area, like Anglo-Platinum Unki Mines, and local boarding schools start to depend on its produce, then it could be an encouragement for other organisations to come and start other projects.”

Findings have shown that women mired in poverty are particularly vulnerable to domestic violence, immoral behaviour and manipulation by unscrupulous politicians. Economic empowerment of the women in the district goes a long way to setting them free from these ills.

Bronnert applauded Zimbabwe’s new constitution for addressing gender equality and said the objectives of the project were to support income generating initiatives by educating women on economic and business issues while also helping them achieve food security.

by Pamenus Tuso

Vana VeZimbabwe (Vavez) has embarked on the distribution of sanitary wear to disadvantaged girls in Matabeleland South.

The director, Josh Nyapimbi, told The Zimbabwean the project was in response to a baseline survey carried out in selected schools last year that revealed that 98% of girls need help with sanitary wear.

“A survey in schools in Umzingwane and Umguza rural districts survey revealed that 52 percent of all schools had no doors on their latrines and 92 percent had no soap. This makes it very difficult for young girls to manage their menstrual periods,” said Nyapimbi.

“The survey clearly showed that there is need to empower local communities, particularly women or school health clubs, on how to produce local, cost-effective, sustainable and environmentally friendly sanitary wear,” he said.

Adolescence and puberty are challenging development stages for girls in Zimbabwe particularly those in poor families or rural communities. The silence, stigma and taboos surrounding menstruation keep many young girls ignorant about how to handle menstruation.

Nyapimbi bemoaned the lack of adequate puberty and menstruation education in schools. “Many school teachers have limited understanding of sanitary health.

All this can lead to absence from school and can contribute to girls ‘school dropout .The situation is further compounded by lack of sanitation, hand–washing facilities and hygiene education in schools,” said Nyapimbi.

The organisation is planning to produce a booklet with basic information about menstruation and hygiene. Nyapimbi said the distribution of the booklet would not only empower girls with the necessary knowledge, but would also increase their self–esteem and ultimately their school attendance.

“It will clarify myths and taboos that often surround menstruation. We expect that the recipients will share it with their siblings, female relatives and girls who are not in school,” he added.

by Pamenus Tuso

The newly elected Mangwe junior MP, Sarudzai Tigere, says the shortage of primary schools in her constituency is critical and has led to children either dropping out of school or being forced to walk long distances every day.

Tigere, a lower sixth student at Empandeni girls high school, was elected the junior MP for the constituency in June. She said she was very worried about the many children who were dropping out of school due to poverty and subjected to child labour in the form of daily rural household chores such as water and firewood fetching.

“School-going children, particularly those in primary schools, face numerous challenges in my constituency. Since I was elected, I have done an assessment of their needs and what is clear is that pupils are walking long distances. Children from less privileged homes are also dropping out of school because they cannot afford tuition fees “said the MP.

Tigere, 17, said she and the junior chief in the area, Nhlanhla Ncube, were planning to hold a series of fund-raising projects. The proceeds will go towards paying school fees and uniforms for the less privileged children in the constituency.

“We hope to involve our senior MPs in these projects. We will have a meeting of all the junior and senior MPs in the constituency so that we deliberate on how best to assist the children,” she said.

The junior parliamentarian also called for the establishment of child friendly schools in the country.

“As children leaders we are advocating for child friendly learning centres where children are not subjected to corporal punishment. We also demand that education should be affordable to all the children” she said.

School children in most parts of Matabeleland provinces are performing dismally in school due to poverty, poor infrastructure and inadequate learning facilities. Last year, about six schools in Gwanda, Matabeleland South, failed to record a single pass. Owing to grinding poverty, school children spend most of their time looking for food instead of going to school.

Harare City Council is losing thousands of dollars every month from 70,000 unregistered water connections, The Zimbabwean has learnt.

“The city has a total of 192,000 registered water connections and an estimated high rate of unregistered connections numbering 70,000,” revealed Harare water director Christopher Zvobgo.

He said his department had a mandate to supply drinkable water to Harare, Chitungwiza, Epworth, Ruwa and Norton Town Councils with a combined estimated total population of about 4.5m people. Harare alone has an estimated population of 2.5m people. “The water demand for such a population is 1,200 mega litres a day but we are currently producing only 450 mega litres day,” he said. “With the $144m China Exim Bank loan we will be able to restore our two water treatment works – Morton Jaffray (MJ) and Prince Edward (PE) – waterworks to their installed treatment capacity of 704 mega litres a day,” he said.

Zvobgo said the ongoing rehabilitation of the water and sewer treatment and distribution works would help solve faults and curb illegal activities in the system. “We have so far received 30 per cent of the ICT equipment from China for the computerisation and networking of all district offices, which will go a long way in monitoring and managing the water grid.

“The 36-month project will bring us improved water supplies from the current 40 per cent to 80 per cent daily, improve service to the rest of suburbs to a minimum of two or three days a week. We expect revenue to increase by $7m and to reduce pollution of the environment and water sources,” he said.

Zvobgo said the city needed $2.95bn to do a complete overhaul of the Greater Harare water system.

“Two new dams with capacity of 750 mega litres a day are needed to increase the current water treatment capacity in the region to 1,450 mega litres a day.

“The entirely new primary and secondary bulk water infrastructure would bring us an upgraded water reticulation network, a new wastewater network for the Harare Metropolitan region and implementation of appropriate technologies to enhance the maintenance and operations of the water services network,” he said.

Capacity building and agro-business training programmes spearheaded by the Zimbabwe Development Democracy Trust (ZDDT) have brought hope to some residents in Bulawayo’s high-density suburbs.

by Pamenus Tuso

While aid organisations have been working hard to help people in rural communities, town- and city-dwellers have often been neglected.

ZDDT is working closely with Bulawayo, Victoria Falls, Gwanda and Gweru local authorities in a bid to empower local people through self-help projects, while also raising awareness of the importance of preserving the environment.

ZDDT is also running a pilot project in Machecheni area in Gwanda North.

“ZDDT has been able to restore ownership of the communities to people in most of the urban areas where we are operating,” said Simon Spooner, ZDDT’s national development officer. “We have also helped residents become more confident by facilitating neighbourhood restoration projects in urban areas. In all our projects, we have involved local authorities in those areas.”

Since its inception in 2009, ZDDT has been providing leadership, lifeskills and team building training to councillors, local authorities and communities in Bulawayo.

“We are currently supporting four wards in Bulawayo with projects such as nutrition gardens and leadership skills training. In all this, we try as much as possible to link development democracy with wealth creation and prosperity, which will eventually lead to a fully-fledged democracy in the country,” said Spooner.

One of the positive outcomes has been the setting up of voluntary and vibrant community action teams in the wards. “In some wards, residents, through the leadership of action teams, have restored dilapidated social amenities and sports grounds. Some wards, like Nketa, have planted trees. Some wards have also been involved in clean-up campaigns in their wards,” added Spooner.

Elly Msipa is one of the ward 16 community action team members. She

is also one of the founders of Kirimova nutritional garden, which has received support from ZDDT.

“I can only say that had it not been for the constant support of ZDDT and its team, including their agricultural extension officer, our lives would have been miserable. We’ve been educated in better ways of farming,” said Msipa.

“Since ZDDT came to our rescue, our crop yields have been tremendous.

We are now selling some of our produce to the market and can raise school fees for our children.”

Rosemary Tshuma described ZDDT as an architect of hope.

“We are a group of 20 widows who have been struggling to make a living. ZDDT has brought us hope by helping us to effectively run and manage our garden. We are now able to pay school fees and also buy mealie meal from cash we realise from selling our produce from the garden,” she said.

Spooner stressed that, unlike other organisations that gave out food and money to beneficiaries, ZDDT promoted a culture of entrepreneurship, volunteering and team spirit among communities.

“We believe in patriotic activism that promotes development and democracy. We see communities freed from the bonds of patronage, united in their commitment to a culture of service delivery and accountable leadership. We also value celebration of successes,” said Spooner.

Despite years of hard work by government agencies, NGOs and community groups, youths living with HIV and Aids are still stigmatised at school and in their communities.

HIV positive youths who spoke to The Zimbabwean strictly on condition of anonymity said stigma and discrimination continue to prevent them from accessing readily available HIV and Aids support services.

An HIV positive girl studying at the Midlands State University (MSU) said stigmatisation has become rife at the university where she said HIV positive students were mocked and given nicknames.

“Most HIV positive students like myself keeps our status as a secret because the moment you reveal it to other students you will be ridiculed. For example, in my class there is a clique of students who are in the habit of referring to HIV positive people as cell phones and ARVs as airtime cards.

Every morning you hear them shouting please please do not forget to juice your cell phones - a reference to us,” she said. Positive youths, especially girls, face numerous challenges when it comes to dating.

“Like anybody else we all have normal sexual feelings and wishes to be married. HIV positive girls face a serious dilemma because if you try to be honest and reveal your status to your partner he will run way from you. If you keep it a secret, you have a problem again because the partner does not want to use a condom,” she said.

Another HIV student from a local secondary school in the city regretted confiding her HIV status to one of her friends. “Everyone at the school is now aware of my status. The other day a group of boys asked me to show them what ARVs looks like. I am now an outcast at the school,” she said.

Zimbabwe National Network of People Living with HIV (ZNNP+) Bulawayo chairperson, Anderson Ndlovu, said his organisation is worried about the high incidence of stigmatisation among students in educational institutions.

“Our HIV/AIDS intervention programmes have tended to exclude the youths. This anomaly has unfortunately created gaps in knowledge and great stigma - not only in colleges but even in communities where the youths live. The stigma is even worse in incidences where both parents have died,” said Ndlovu.

His organisation has embarked on various HIV and AIDS campaign programmes in the city. “In this campaign we are targeting both the affected and those youths who think they are in the comfort zone. We launched this campaign at Ndlovu Youth Centre in Tshabalala high density suburb. During the launch, some HIV positive youths gave testimonies about their experiences. We want to break the silence among youths regarding HIV,” he said.

Government has secured $2 million dollars to compensate the flood victims in Masvingo who have been living under inhuman conditions since February this year.

Some of the villagers started getting their compensation funds last week amid reports that the government was still pumping out a reported $300,000 every month to feed the 12,000 flood victims now living on Nuanetsi Ranch.

Masvingo provincial administrator Felix Chikovo said they had started compensating the flood victims as the government had made available $2 million - part of the $8 million needed to compensate all the victims.

“We are going to compensate all the flood victims once funds have been secured and we hope the remaining funds would be made available soon,” said Chikovo.

Some of the villagers could not believe their eyes as they got various amounts of money ranging from $5,000 per family to as much as $25,000. Chikovo handed over the money to displaced victims whose hopes of getting compensation from the cash-strapped government were fading by the day.

Naison Munyaro said he was happy to get his cash but said delays in funds disbursement had caused a lot of suffering to the villagers especially young children. “The road to this moment has been tough and we are calling on the state to speedily disburse the funds so that all the villagers are compensated,” he said. “Our young children who were made to live under these inhuman conditions at this tender age and for several months.”

Most of the victims said they would use the money to erect permanent homes at the ranch.

An innovative food bank in Mutiusinazita in Buhera district is providing poor families with access to maize during the hunger season, reports reports CLAYTON MASEKESA.

The Hozi (Granary) Food Bank, established in 2008, is managed exclusively by women. The scheme is improving nutrition, keeping families together and accruing interest in the form of grain stores in the warehouses.

The women who manage Hozi work with the Chief and his traditional subjects, Arex officials and a local councillor. The bank stores crops immediately after harvest and is able to lend grain to devastated families during the hunger season when crops fail.

According to local councillor, Samson Chiteme, the women have excelled. “Each week during the rainy season, the women involved in the project organise the collection and distribution of available cereals. This is significant because here in Buhera women have traditionally had little or no control over decision-making,” said Chiteme.

“This approach gives us three main results. First, we have been able to set up a local system at village level to prevent and manage food crises with a strong focus on poor families,” he explained. “Secondly, it has enabled women in the villages to become actively involved in this enterprise with the support of their husbands, and this in turn, has led to the creation new, dynamic women’s organisations in the villages. And thirdly, the project is able to work with these organisations to develop activities that focus on issues such as health, child nutrition, HIV and other challenges.”

Exchange

The chairperson of Hozi Food Bank, Miriam Mabikwa – who is a respected community leader, said the bank was lending food to farmers during the planting period to help them get through the pre-harvest hunger season, which runs from mid-July to early November, a time when family maize reserves are almost empty.

“During these months, families usually eat only one meal a day.” Mabikwa said. “It is also the time when farmers are planting seeds and need strength to work.” She explained: “The Hozi Food Bank concept is based on exchange. Every week, poor families receive maize as a credit. The families through their subsistence farming then pay back the loan – not with money, but with the maize, once their own crops are harvested. They add 25 per cent interest to replace the stock and cover the cost of storage and maintenance.” She added that first preference was given to women who were regarded as responsible and had proved to be honest.

“Hozi has sustained many households in the village through recurring food crises caused by persistent drought, which has seen cereal production drop by nearly a third in successive years,” she said.

The droughts in Buhera in 2008 created a famine. Hardship was aggravated by intense political pressure from Zanu (PF), which forced various NGOs supplying food donations to pull out. Most villagers faced acute food shortages.

Crop failure

An Arex Official in the area, Robson Masaiti, last week said even some of the crops that were suitable for the area had failed to thrive over the years. He predicted that the same conditions were likely to persist in the forthcoming season. “From the look of the things right now, our water sources are inadequate and the pastures insufficient. Very soon live-stock will be under siege in this district," said Masaiti. The drought that began in 2008 and persisted during subsequent years has forced most rural families to sell tools, seed, herds and flocks to buy what little food was available.

“I have been harvesting an average of only four sacks of maize in my four-hectare field over the years,” said Keresenzia Munyavi, a villager. “So even before the planting season, we were left without maize for the household. My husband went to work on other people’s fields to make money to buy maize. I had already sold my goat to get through the drought and I was left with nothing else to sell, but now I am happy that I have managed to feed my family, using the maize loan I got from Hozi,” said Munyavi.

Rosaline Gadzikwa, who became one of the maize bank’s clients in 2009, said there were two main benefits from having the Hozi close by. “Last month I had 56 kilograms of maize that helped us cope for one month and gave us something to eat other than just leafy vegetables. Without the maize, many heads of households would have had to leave the village,” she said.

Her neighbour Juliet Samushonga agreed: “If we didn’t have the Hozi, our alternative strategies would have been to borrow from our neighbours in Wedza and Chivhu or to send our husbands away in search of jobs,” she added.

Survival

Farmers benefiting from the scheme have been able to continue working in their fields, instead of being forced to seek jobs elsewhere and neglect their own cultivations.

Lucia Chipindura, another beneficiary, said, “In April this year we barely had anything left from what we had harvested. With seven people to feed and my husband having to work in a neighbouring village, I had to sell one of my goats to buy additional maize to ensure the survival of the household.

“My husband came back for the rainy season but had to work on other people’s plots in Chivhu to earn some money. With the little money he could make with that seasonal work, we could have two meals a day combined with vegetables.” Chipundura said she borrowed 30 kilograms of maize last month.

“My husband no longer needs to work on others’ fields four times a week. He can now concentrate on our own field. The Hozi is a good initiative. Today as women in the villages are able to participate in meetings with the agreement and support of our husbands, so we know more about what is going on outside our homes. We could hardly do that in the past. We now want the stock in the Hozi to increase so that it covers a much longer period of the pre-harvest season,” she added.

Becoming a member of the Mountain of Hope, a community garden project in Wedza, Mashonaland East is not only bringing financial benefits for Tracy Simango, 46.

For Simango, the greatest achievement is that the project had become the backbone of the provision of food security for her family and the community.

The mother of four believes that because of the benefits that come with practicing organic farming, ‘poor farmers’ from her community are embracing the practice because it guaranteed their participation and ability to venture into sustainable agricultural practices.

“Organic farming ensures that even those farmers who cannot afford the high costs of inputs are able to plant their crops and harvest good yields,” said Simango.

She said since the project started in 2011, the Mountain of Hope project had been successfully contributing to the members’ household food security through the provision of a rich variety of vegetables while boosting the financial status of its members.

Richer

“We use liquid manure for our crops and instead of using fertilisers, we prepare composts using locally available resources such as grass, tree bark and cow dung among others,” said Simango, adding that this had also improved the fertility of their soils.

“The soil is now richer and we are optimistic that through the expertise that we have been taught on how to effectively engage in organic farming practices, we are going to be getting even higher yields in the near future.”

According to the Organic Trade Association (OTA), a membership-based business association for the organic industry in North America whose mission is to promote and protect organic trade to benefit the environment, farmers, the public, and the economy, organic farming reduces pollutants in groundwater and creates richer soil that aids plant growth while reducing erosion.

However, for the community gardening project which started in 2011,facilitated by the Fambidzanai Permaculture Training Centre (FPTC) and the Zimbabwe Organic Producers Association (ZOPPA), members of Mountain of Hope members were not aware of this until they ventured into organic farming.

Boosting of a membership of 21 people, members of Mountain of Hope said they were grateful for the environmental benefits of organic farming.

Divided into three clusters, the northern, southern and central wings, the project aims at promoting sustainable organic farming practices and ensuring that communities have a sense of ownership over the production of safe, quality agricultural produce.

“When we started this project, we were allocated 20 by 20 metres of land per household and we were trained by ZOPPA and FPTC on sustainable organic agricultural practices,” said Simango.

Determined

She said although the families did not realise big yields from the crops that they planted in 2011 at the start of the project, they continued receiving training on how to maximise their yields and they did not lose heart.

Simango said since the initiation of the project, the farmers have been growing among other crops tomatoes, peas, carrots and babymarrows whose market is mostly in Harare.

“Initially, we relied on rain water because we did not have the capacity to plant our crops all year since we did not have any irrigation pipes,” said Simango.

“Our expenses have decreased over the years because each member managed to buy its own set of irrigation equipment from the proceeds that we got from the farming activities that we have done since 2011.”

Simango said expectations for an even higher yield are high considering that project members had set up green houses.

“Last year, we supplied over 6, 000 pallets of baby marrows to some of our suppliers including Interfresh and Favco,” said Simango, adding that the farmers' products were highly marketable especially in Harare and among boarding schools in and around Mashonaland East.

She said unlike most farmers who do not add value to their farm produce, project members of Mountain of Hope packaged their farm produce to ensure that they realised a higher market value.

“Our products are marketable because most people appreciate them and we ensure that when we are supplying them, they are clearly marked and labelled as organic farm produce,” she said.

Pro- poor

Simango added that of the 21 Mountain of Hope members, 14 were women.

“This project is generating a lot of income for us as women because it is cost effective and sensitive to the plight of the poor,” she said.

Fortunate Nyakanda, the Director for ZOPPA said her organisation had established that in most farmer communities that their organisation worked in, women were willing to participate more in organic farming practices.

“When it came to the land, women were in most instances allocated the poorest patches from the family land as the best land and inputs will be for the cash crops usually managed by the male head of the family.”

Investment

Nyakanda said as custodians of health in the family, women embraced organic farming systems more because of the benefits associated with the health of the family.

“The health of the family burdens the woman more than the men and they embrace the practice because they want to invest in the health of their families,” said Nyakanda, adding that as custodians of food within the family setup, organic farming was important to them considering that it gave them an opportunity to provide for their families a diversity of crops and food.

Organic farming is a form of agriculture that relies on techniques such as crop rotation, green manure, compost, and biological pest control.

Safe

Crops grown using organic farming are generally grown without synthetic pesticides, artificial fertilizers, irradiation (a form of radiation used to kill bacteria), or biotechnology.

According to the Hartman Group, a market research firm, the organic-food business is booming. The organisation stated that close to 70 percent of Americans buy organic food occasionally while nearly one quarter of the whole population bought it weekly.

A report by the National Academy of Sciences, organic foods may have higher nutritional value than conventional food, a development believed to emanate from the absence of pesticides and fertilizers.

Some studies have linked pesticides in food to everything from headaches to cancer to birth defects — but many experts maintain that the levels in conventional food are safe for most healthy adults.

Impoverished A1 farmers are in panic mode following reports that Zanu (PF)’s December congress is planning to sub-divide their land into plots and allocate them to party youths.

A1 farmers in Mashonaland Central and Mashonaland East Provinces told The Zimbabwean they had been warned that congress would resolve to “sub-divide our small six hectare plots”.

“Though we are not against the intended sharing of land, what we do not understand is why farmers with vast tracts of land like the first family would be spared,” said a Mashonaland Central farmer who could not be identified for security reasons.

The farmer, who is a war veteran and holds a senior position in the party, said a “big fish” was stalling the land audit to spare the larger A2 farms, most of which are occupied by top Zanu (PF) officials, security chiefs and some government officials.

Zanu (PF) youth who converged at a national congress in August demanded that they be allocated idle land as they had not benefited from the land “reform” exercise as they were too young when it started in 2000.

According to the source, the youths indicated that the majority of them were too young to participate in the agrarian programme when it started.

“Government should speed up the land audit so that youths can be allocated idle land … they should institute a system that fast tracks the land audit, while enabling access to underutilised land by youths for agricultural and residential purposes,” reads part of their demands.

When asked about the criteria used to decide to sub-divide A1 plots while sparing large idle A2 farms, Paddy Zhanda, the co-deputy minister for lands said: “The right person to comment is the minister for lands, Douglas Mombeshora.”

Zhanda indicated that the minister was out of the country and would only be accessible next week.

Despite many A2 farms lying idle, they have been spared while defenceless A1 farmers, whose land is already insufficient, have been targeted for re-distribution.

The first family is a multiple farm owner and recently the Grace Mugabe evicted poor families to extend her already sprawling estate in Mazowe.

Grace described the struggling families as gold panners destroying the vegetation and deserving the eviction.

“I applied for the land from the Mashonaland Central leadership and was duly allocated the farm,” said Grace,

who boasted of being given an offer letter by the Ministry of Lands after “applying for ownership of a conservancy owned by some whites.”

Oppah Muchinguri, the outgoing chairperson of the Zanu (PF) Women’s League, told party supporters at Grace’s Mazowe farm that a few party leaders had grabbed land at the expense of youth.

“President (Mugabe) is saying give farms to youths yet some people are busy giving the land to their own children. The thieves that the President has nursed have stolen mines and farms,” said Muchinguri, without mentioning names.

When asked if the country still had land to allocate the youths and those left out of the redistribution, Rugare Gumbo, Zanu (PF) spokesperson said: “The issue is being dealt with by the Ministry of Lands which knows how best to handle it.”

If Zanu (PF) goes ahead and partitions A1 farms while sparing the large A2 farms owned by the big fish, there are fears that thousands of struggling small scale farmers would pushed to the edge.

Nestled in the foothills of the scenic Chimanimani Mountains, bordering the national park and Mozambique, lies a field of pineapples managed by a group of dedicated women from Chikukwa village.

Group leader Roselyn Chipunza says that the group was forced to re-evaluate their rural roots and concentrate on community based agriculture due to the collapse of the economy due to massive inflation in 2007 and economic problems that resulted from that.

Since then, life has become a lot sweeter for eight rural women who decided to grow organic pineapples as a business. “We were in a deep crisis. The state of the economy drove us to experiment and we found pineapple farming to be our solution,” said Chipunza.

UNDP support

Since receiving funds and support from UNDP and with help from the Interchurch Organisation for Development Cooperation (ICCO), the ‘ pineapple experiment’ has indeed become key to poverty relief in Chikukwa village.

Over the years, the group’s pineapple production has been transformed through the introduction of strategies for economic and environmentally responsible production.

“Pineapples have changed our lives. Besides the local market, export markets have increased. Currently 1 kg of pineapples sells for about $12 on the export market. We get double that price on the local market. For pulped pineapple, the price quadruples,” explained Chipunza.

The group sells pineapples to local individuals and at various markets in Mutare and Harare. “We have customers who make bulk purchases from us, including buyers from South Africa and Mozambique. At the moment the market is good,” she added.

Bank account

The lives of women in the group have been transformed. “We are now all able to look after ourselves. Our life styles have changed since we receive an income to sustain our lives,” said Vaida Muza, one of the members.

“Besides now having a bank and a savings account, I have managed to extend my house and upgrade my homestead. I am now able to pay school fees. A homestead is incomplete without a goat and I now have 24 goats. I am looking forward to saving more money and to starting other income generating projects,” Muza added.

Another member, Nyaradzai Kachere, said “Due to the success of the project I now have a monthly income that is keeping me and my family going. I am even able to send my son to university. We have wonderful harvests and turnover is good.”

Goats eat pulp

Kachere said the pineapple dollars have also allowed her to diversify into livestock breeding. “I feed my goats pineapple pulp, and use the manure to fertilise the pineapples in line with organic principles, which prohibit the use of chemical fertilisers. Pineapples as a cover crop also keep the soil from eroding.”

Chipunza said the group was planning to buy more land to expand the pineapple project from 20,000 to 50,000 plants. “We are also looking at diversifying, so that we do not rely solely on pineapples,” she said.

Because pineapples are perishable the group is looking at means of adding value to gain more from the produce. “We are looking at setting up a wine and juice processing plant and are in the process of negotiating with donors and partners who would assist us with machinery,” said Chipunza. To kick-start the project they are looking at three solar dryers, a blender and a pulp machine that extracts juice. “Fortunately, I have already received training on how to process and package pineapple juice and wine,” she said.