Contributor: Richard Nyamanhindi

Twenty-year-old Nyasha Zulu and 21-year-old Simbarashe Mudara have lived most of their lives in the dormitory town of Chitungwiza, 30 kilometers from Zimbabwe's capital, Harare. The town has no major industries to speak of, and so youths such as Nyasha and Simbarashe often spend time engaging in risky behaviour.

Vocational education students in Chitungwiza, Zimbabwe who recently received start-up kits from Mercy Corps. Photo: Richard Nyamanhindi/Mercy Corps

Now, thanks to Mercy Corps — under the Non-Governmental Organisation Joint Initiative for Urban Zimbabwe (JI) — they have been able to receive vocational training to help them begin their own small businesses and make better choices about their lives.

Implemented by Mercy Corps in 2008, the vocational training programme has been assisting more than 300 youths in Chitungwiza. The youths are drawn mainly from vulnerable and poor households in the town to access vocational training opportunities.

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A community home-based volunteer counsells a client during her home visits in Mbare, Harare, Zimbabwe. A Mercy Corps-led consortium is is providing HIV services to poor and vulnerable households in urban areas. Photo: courtesy of Zimbabwe Project Trust

Florence Tigere is in bed today. The typically vibrant 55-year-old woman, who serves as both treasurer and secretary of her HIV Sahwira Support Group, is suffering from a piercing headache. The severe pain, coupled with Florence’s swollen face and feet, has community home-based volunteer Mary Musamba concerned.

“Please take your mother to the hospital immediately,” Mary advises Florence’s 17-year-old daughter, giving her 50 cents of her personal money to pay for transport. Mary is worried Florence may have contracted a type of meningitis or possibly malaria. In either case, she needs treatment right away, especially because Florence’s immune system is already compromised by the HIV.

The importance of early medical referrals is one of the many reasons the Joint Initiative for Urban Zimbabwe (JI) — a consortium of ten non-governmental organisations (NGOs) places a strong focus on community home-based care. The consortium, which is led by Mercy Corps, is providing HIV services to poor and vulnerable households in urban areas — including delivery of free home-based care to more than 8,578 clients in six urban areas of Zimbabwe.

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Lucia Mbanje in her small urban garden, where she's able to grow a variety of fresh fruits and vegetables to nourish her family. Photo: Richard Nyamanhindi/Mercy Corps

Until last year, 81-year-old Lucia Mbanje and her family of six, all residents of impoverished Sakubva township in Mutare, could not afford a balanced diet due to the prohibitive cost of vegetables in Zimbabwe as a result of the economic crisis.

In November 2009, Mercy Corps started training the family in the technique of low-input gardening, which requires minimal acreage. Mercy Corps which is the lead agency in the Joint Initiative for Urban Zimbabwe programme, which has so far trained 450 beneficiaries like Lucia in crop management and crop rotation practices to minimize the use of scarce water, allowing them to grow a diverse array of vegetables and herbs in backyards.

In addition, Mercy Corps trained the beneficiaries to use animal manure and compost rather than fertilizer, saving money and helping the environment. The raised vegetable beds used in low-input gardens retain water better than beds closer to the ground and prevent spoilage during floods.

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Beauty Jokonya, a local farmer in Zimbabwe's Murehwa district, with bounty from her crop field — which, with help from Mercy Corps, she and her husband irrigate with a treadle pump. Photo: Richard Nyamanhindi/Mercy Corps

One of the greatest challenges that smallholder farmers face in Zimbabwe is how to irrigate bigger plots and get higher returns from their pieces of land. One of the most successful technologies that Mercy Corps has introduced in Zimbabwe's Murehwa district is the treadle pump.

This is not the first time that Mercy Corps has used the pump to increase yields in Murehwa. It was first introduced to Murehwa — which lay about 50 miles from Harare, the country's capital — in 2008 through the Phoenix Fund. This initial project assisted 25 local farmers with water-pumping devices in an effort to increase yields in an area that is endowed with many shallow wells.

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Some of the caregivers and children from the Good Hope Support Group in Mutare, Zimbabwe. Photo: Richard Nyamanhindi/Mercy Corps

Taking care of children living with HIV, or those who have lost parents to HIV/AIDS, can wear a guardian down. Clinic visits never seem to end. There is never enough food to fill everyone’s bellies. And money on hand never seems to cover all the transportation and medical costs.

But when you have other community members supporting you, the burdens lighten.

While it is not always easy taking care of children whose lives have been forever changed by HIV, members of the Good Hope Support Group — a group of four mothers — in Mutare, Zimbabwe help each other overcome challenges.

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