WFP empowers Byo residents with skills

[ad_1] By MTHANDAZO NYONI THE World Food Programme (WFP), in partnership with DanChurchAid and ORAP, is empowering people in urban areas with farming and business skills through its urban resilience programme aimed at enhancing food security. The programme, being piloted in the Mzilikazi and Phelandaba high-density suburbs of Bulawayo, has to date benefited 700 households […]

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By MTHANDAZO NYONI

THE World Food Programme (WFP), in partnership with DanChurchAid and ORAP, is empowering people in urban areas with farming and business skills through its urban resilience programme aimed at enhancing food security.

The programme, being piloted in the Mzilikazi and Phelandaba high-density suburbs of Bulawayo, has to date benefited 700 households which have been empowered with farming and business skills such as cuniculture, poultry rearing, growing of mushrooms and horticulture, among others.

DanChurchAid co-ordinator Olwin Manyanye told Southern Eye in an interview during a media tour 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,” she said.

“We are piloting this in Bulawayo, in the Mzilikazi district. So with the urban resilience, because we are piloting this project, 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.”

Manyanye said they partnered government arms such as the Women Affairs ministry and Agritex to assist in technical expertise.

“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 our cuniculture, poultry and horticulture as well as the mushroom projects,” she said.

“So for resilience, we have around 700 households that are being supported. This is inclusive of the ones that do buying and selling. So for the other technical projects, we also supported with starter kits because due to COVID-19, some of them ended up using capital for their business. They were not able to restart their businesses, so we supportedthem.”

For instance, for the 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.

“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.

“We are also working with Empretec. It’s quite a holistic project and we would love to see how it grows and see its fruits at the end of the year.”

One of the programme beneficiaries, Precious Tachiona (23), said the programme was very useful and she looked forward to growing her cunicultureproject.

“I received two rabbits — one doe and a buck — and a 10kg sack of pellets. Once my rabbits reach maturity, I am hoping to breed and sell them,” she said.

In future, she plans to open a butchery in Bulawayo where she would sell white meat including rabbits and fish.

“Rabbit droppings make very good manure and also the urine is very good for plants. It’s a big project. If you take care of them (rabbits) well with proper hygiene, they give birth to about 15 bunnies at a time,” she said.

WFP in partnership with DanChurchAid is also assisting 29 069 food-insecure urbanites in Mzilikazi and Phelandaba resindential areas of Bulawayo through electronic vouchers and 5 000 cash transfers.

According to the 2020 Urban ZimVAC report, 2,4 million urbanites in Zimbabwe are food insecure.

This figure represents almost half of Zimbabwe’s total urban population.

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.

WFP is currently providing food assistance to over 320 000 people in Zimbabwe.

Follow Stephen on Twitter @jagganox78

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