Author: Tatenda Chitagu
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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…
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Ahead of COP 27, Zimbabwe digs in on coal phase-out
By Tatenda Chitagu HARARE-As the world meets for the 27th Conference of Parties (COP27) set for early next month, Zimbabwe has claimed an abrupt phasing out of coal will increase energy poverty among its 15 million inhabitants. The COP, organised almost each year by the United Nations Framework Convention for Climate Change (UNFCCC), will take…
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Accountability Lab Zimbabwe announces new call for applications
By HuMFOZ Reporter HARARE-The Accountability Lab Zimbabwe, an organisation that nurtures young civic leaders and social entrepreneurs working to address accountability challenges in their communities, has opened applications for its 2023 cohort. In a press statement, Accountability Lab communications officer Upenyu Makoni-Muchemwa said the new cohort will commence next January under the general theme “Global…
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Old rags in underwear: the sad tales of period poverty for Zimbabwe’s internally displaced persons
By Tatenda Chitagu The old tent that provides cover at a makeshift blair toilet for Martha Moyo in Nuanetsi Ranch is tattered and it is matter of time before it gives in to the vagaries of the weather. But Moyo, one of the 17 000 flood survivors from the basin of Zimbabwe’s biggest inland dam,…
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When aging becomes a ‘curse’ in Zimbabwe
By Tatenda Chitagu/Hazvinei Mwanaka MASVINGO, ZIMBABWE-The tolling bell marks lunchtime at Mucheke Old People’s home in Masvingo city, ending hours of sun basking for 18 elderly inmates at the institution nestled in the heart of the populous Mucheke High density suburb. While others trudge to the dining hall, which is about five meters away from…
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Masvingo mad gold rush: the aftermath, one year on
By Tatenda Chitagu WENDEDZO, MASVINGO-Two grubby boys in their mid-twenties are camoufloudged by the red soils while submerged in the massive pits and shafts that go deep down into the belly of the earth. For starters, this is the area where there was a mad gold rush in February last year that drew hundreds of…