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.