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The project aims at empowering women and out of school youths with life skills. The project site is in Matau Village in Hurungwe District in Mashonaland West province. According to the 2012 population census, Hurungwe District had a population of 329,197. 71.5% of the inhabitants were aged 0 - 29 years.
Hurungwe District receives low erratic rainfall which averages 750 mm per annum. It is one of Zimbabwe's prime tobacco farming regions. However, most households struggle due to the vagaries of weather (drought, flooding and hailstorms), as well as the gyrations in the tobacco prices at the auction floors. The Rotary Club of Harare Central's aim is to offer the out of school youths and women in the district alternative sources of income. In collaboration with Tererai Trent International (TTI) Foundation, which has been running educational intervention programmes in Hurungwe since 2012, it has conducted a skills audit in Hurungwe. Thousands of able bodied and economically active people in the district are keen to diversify from tobacco farming and pursue other vocations. We have also been in contact with Young Africa (www.youngafrica.org), a Netherlands headquartered organisation which operates skills centres, and runs youth (self-) employment programmes and community activities in Zimbabwe, Mozambique, Namibia, Botswana and Zambia. It offers 43 different Technical Vocational Education and Training courses. Of these, our survey indicated a serious shortage as well as demand in the following:
- car mechanics
catering/culinary skills
- cattle management
- dressmaking
- hair dressing
- hand made jewelry
- horticulture
- knitting
- metal works
- panel beating
- welding
- solar technology
Equipped with the aforementioned life skills, the out of skill youths and women will undergo basic business management course. A micro credit facility will also be offered to them to enable those who want to grow their businesses to do so using affordable loan facilities. The broader aim of the Rotary Club of Harare Central is to create a micro economy for Hurungwe District that will spare the residents long trips to major towns like Karoi and even cities such as Chinhoyi and Harare where they currently access the products and services that will be offered under this intervention.
It is our hope that this project will kick start in January 2020. We aim to empower an initial 600 youths and women in 2020, with the figure growing over time. The project funds will be used as follows:
- purchase of equipment to be used by the trainees
- payment for training facilitators to Young Africa
- establishment of a revolving fund which trainees interested in growing their businesses
will be able to access
- travel costs incurred by members of the Rotary Club of Harare Central during the
implementation as well as monitoring and evaluation stages of the project
- an other incidental expenses
Dr Mabel Hungwe, a developmental expert and member of the Rotary Club of Harare Central, will spearhead the project. She will be assisted by members of an ad-hoc committee that has been set up to implement this initiative.
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