Bulawayo residents empowered with survival skills
By Letwin Mubonesi
World Food Programme (WFP) has partnered with DanChurchAid and ORAP to empower Bulawayo residents in urban areas with farming and business skills.
The programme is aimed at enhancing food security in the country and it has benefited 700 households so far.
They have been empowered with farming and business skills such as cuniculture, poultry rearing, growing of mushrooms and horticulture.
A household income survey conducted by the World Bank and the Zimbabwe National Statistics Agency (ZimStat) in 2020 to assess the socio-economic impact of COVID-19 concluded that urban households were severely impacted by COVID-19 resulting in loss of sources of livelihoods and food insecurity.
DanChurchAid co-ordinator Olwin Manyanye during a media tour said that they were also supporting those who are into buying and selling business.
“Most of the beneficiaries being supported are informal traders and the lockdown restrictions affected their buying and selling ventures.
They could no longer travel to order their stock. So the urban resilience then came in.
“We are piloting this in Bulawayo, in the Mzilikazi district. We are targeting people that have started some skill, have some knowledge, experience or have some equipment that has to do with a particular enterprise that they want to be involved in,” he said.
They have also partnered with the Women Affairs ministry and Agritex to assist in technical expertise needed during the course of the programme.
The ministry has been assisting with training on detergent making, washing powder manufacturing, while Agritex has been supporting with the technical training in livestock for cuniculture, poultry and horticulture as well as the mushroom projects.
For cuniculture enterprises, each beneficiary was supported with a buck and a doe and pellets, while those into poultry were given chicks, stress packs and starter mesh respectively.
“Then the rest of the feeds, this is now input from the beneficiaries themselves so that they own the project. They also invest in the project. This is where we are, we recently started. It’s just about two-and-a-half months old now, but what we envisage from that and also through the monitoring that we are doing and with support from government extension services is that they grow these enterprises and we link them to viable markets where they will be able to sell,” Manyanye said.
WFP in partnership with DanChurchAid is also assisting 29 069 food-insecure urbanites in Mzilikazi and Phelandaba residential areas of Bulawayo through electronic vouchers and 5 000 cash transfers.
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