Underprivileged women get skills and income boost

The organisation, the brainchild of Georgina Chiwetu, has so far helped 20 rural women from Chiwetu village in Makoni district. Chiwetu is in the country from her base in the USA, where she is a training manager with a social services organisation. In an exclusive interview with The Zimbabwean last week, Chiwetu said there were many women who were the sole breadwinners for their families, and many of them were uneducated or unskilled.

“My organisation has been training such women. We have started with the first group of 20 women in Chiwetu village where I come from. I have plans to establish more initiatives throughout the country,” she said, adding that the women had also been taught how to bake snacks to sell in the community.

“I recruited training officers, who train the women using my personal funds and some donations from my friends from abroad. I have permanent staff that who will doing the programmes here while I’m away. I always come twice a year to see and monitor the projects,” Chiwetu said. To kickstart the project, Chiwetu supplied materials, including ten electric sewing machines, fabric and wool. Over the past year, a group of five women, led by Morina Simbabure, has used its cooking skills to make and sell fat cakes and buns.

“It has been a successful project. We want to thank mama (Chiwetu) for initiating this project with us. Now we are able to send our children to school and lead normal lives,” she said.

The group is currently selling its food products to visitors and patients at Chiwetu Clinic. They also sell food to staff and students at Chiwetu secondary and primary schools. The women have plans to expand their business by opening a tuck shop at Chiwetu business centre.

“Local shops and restaurants order from us and we are looking forward to increasing our business by employing other women this year, because the demand has been encouraging,” said Simbabure.

She said the group makes an average of $1,500 per month after expenses, which they share among themselves equally. A group of 10 women are busy with sewing and knitting and have already opened a shop at Chiwetu business centre, where they sell clothes to the public.

The group’s leader, Tamari Chisango, said they have been supplying school and sporting uniforms mainly to Chiwetu secondary and primary schools, as well as some pre-schools and churches in the community.

“This has been a success story to us. We now have a source of income and we are surviving. Our members have been able to send children to school and we are happy that in these times of economic hardship we have been able to get basic necessities for our family upkeep,” said Chisango.

“Business varies and we do not have a fixed amount that we share, but sometimes the figures will be high and sometimes low. Since the beginning of this project, we have been able to share reasonable incomes among ourselves,” she added. Chiwetu hoped that the trained women would go on to become the trainers for other women in rural areas throughout the country.

“I am looking forward to establishing knitting classes,” she added. Chiwetu believes that, as more women get trained, they will be able to share their skills, giving many more the means to support themselves financially.