Author: Tatenda Chitagu
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Include young people in SRHR issues: expert
Hazvinei Mwanaka Government and organizations that deal with adolescents have been urged to include and impart them with the necessary information on Sexual Reproductive and Health Rights (SRHR) so that they are not victims of misinformation and disinformation. Speaking during a workshop on SRHR recently in Harare, Diana Mailosi, coordinator for the Advocacy Core Team…
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Mechanisation: the missing link for Zim smallholder farmers
By Tatenda Chitagu MASVINGO-The ease with which Magret Mapondo, a small-scale farmer from rural Masvingo district, processes her cow-peas harvest, is something to behold. Not so long ago, the 45 year-old farmer from southern Zimbabwe would take several days to thrash, then shell, using her bare hands, and winnow a few sacks of her cow…
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How a sacred natural site is helping to conserve Zimbabwe’s rare southern ground hornbills
By Tatenda Chitagu BIKITA, MASVINGO-A flock of clucking southern ground hornbill birds roam freely near an unmistakably pristine hill in Bikita district of Masvingo province in southern Zimbabwe. The hill, named Chiroorwe, stands out from the rest in the mountainous area as its verdancy lies untouched. Other mountains nearby are scarred, with trees having been…
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COVID 19 vaccination fatigue hits Zimbabwe
Hazvinei Mwanaka MASVINGO- Low COVID 19 vaccine uptake in communities has been attributed to misinformation and religious beliefs in some churches hence the need for proactive awareness programs, a health expert has said. Speaking to journalists last week during a Science Café meeting organized by Health Communicators Forum (HCF), Community Working Group on Health (CWGH)…
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Beneficiate resources to avoid labour migration, says the Pan African Parliament
By Tatenda Chitagu MIDRAND, SOUTH AFRICA-Africa should beneficiate its vast resource endowments as failure to do so entails exporting jobs to Europe and other continents leading to brain drain through labour migration, the continental legislative body, the Pan African Parliament (PAP) has said. Speaking during the ongoing PAP committee sittings here, Amos Masondo, a South…
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How agroecology has improved the lives of Zimbabwe’s smallholder farmers
By Tatenda Chitagu SHASHE, MASVINGO-Elizabeth Mpofu’s homestead resembles an island in sea of poverty. The lush green rapoko, millet, sorghum, orchard and banana plantation on the 63 year-old farmer’s twelve hectare plot illuminates the neatly structured houses in the dry and arid Zvemahande resettlement area, about 20 kilometers north-east of Mashava mining town, west of…
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Child headed families suffering in silence
Hazvinei Mwanaka MASVINGO – It’s often said that it takes a village to raise a child. But for Martha Moyo 17* (not real name), from Gutu, her village turned its back on her. After being impregnated at a tender age, Moyo is one of the many children in the country who endured the burden of…
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Teenage pregnancies: Time to act
Hazvinei Mwanaka. The shocking story of a nine year old Tsholotsho girl who fell pregnant made sad reading. She has since given birth by cesarean section. Barely a week later, another nine year old Bindura girl is reported to be pregnant. While previous reports of teen pregnancies were reported in the media, these two cases…
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Zimbabwe smallholder farmers’ battle for seed, food sovereignty
By Tatenda Chitagu MASVINGO-Loveness Ducha (61), a smallholder subsistence farmer from Shashe, Mashava in Zimbabwe’s southern Masvingo province, can now successfully control her diet from the indigenous crops she grows at her four hectare plot. The battle for food and seed sovereignty, however, was not a stroll in the park for the diabetes patient, who…
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Masvingo flood survivors drink untreated water
Hazvinei Mwanaka and Tatenda Chitagu MWENEZI-Martha Moyo (24) lives a stone’s throw away from a borehole drilled by a humanitarian organisation a few years after she was resettled in Nuanetsi Ranch in the hot and arid Mwenezi district of Masvingo province in 2014. But she barely remembers when last she fetched water from it. “I…