Ishmael Mkandla
BUOYED by the need to create income revenue startups, two young women in Nyamandlovu, Umguza district have embarked on poultry rearing projects, in what could be a game changer in this farming area.
The projects have helped supplement household earnings but, the women bemoan lack of financial and resource assistance to turn the businesses into sustainable and profitable ventures.
Having started out on keeping broiler chickens at her small holding at village 4 in ward 15, Sithembinkosi Dube, 23 a single mother said her life and many of her peers can be transformed if they can get adequate assistance on self-help projects.
While she noted that there has been an organisation which had extended some help to young women in her area, she said the support was inadequate for them to be fully self-sustainable.
“We had been clustered into groups and my group of five had been keeping some broilers at Nyamandlovu center. It was a viable and promising project but it did not turn out to be that good because our chicks died because of lack of drugs and those which survived suffered lack of feed as from the fourth week and we didn’t realise the profits,” she said.
Dube applauded all efforts aimed at alleviating problems faced by young mothers in her area but called for well-wishers to adequately support them.
“If well-wishers could just adequately provide us with the right amounts of feed and drugs for our broiler projects we can go far but the problem is that we are given insufficient resources and as such as startups we fail to sail through,” she said.
The Zambezi Times crew also caught up with a mother of two who preferred being identified as naZibengwa who is breeding broilers with her neighbour.
“We are doing this broiler project as women in this area. We started with 35 chicks of broilers but we are yet to record any growth in this business because we keep losing some through death because of water shortage in this area as well as the drugs to treat them.
“The other thing is we need people who can train us on how to look after broilers, I think that’s the other big let down on us,” she said.
Dube said she is now recruiting other young mothers to embark on nutritional garden projects courtesy of Campaign for Female Education (Camfed).
“So far I am busy recruiting others for our nutritional garden projects. On this one we want to make sure it succeeds because it will be close to our homes and we can easily monitor,” she said.
The women get water for the chickens from an electricity pumped borehole but, they at times fail to raise money to pay for the electricity.
“There is a lot of underground water here in Nyamandlovu but the problem is that it needs cash power which most of us cannot afford as such we request if we could have solar powered sources of water so that we can actually rest assured for the sustainable supply of water.
“People need vegetables and if adequate water is available we can actually supply Bulawayo markets with vegetables,” added Dube.
