STAFF WRITER
TSHOLOTSHO High School has embraced agriculture as part of the broader initiative to generate income for a number of its projects.
School head Sicelo Dube said the initiative to turn to agriculture for self-sustaining projects was mooted at the height of the Covid-19 induced lockdown.
One of the projects that has come out of the initiative, is the boys’ dormitory construction, which is meant to decongest the learners in the wake of the pandemic.
“Behind me is the extension of the boys’ dormitory. Due to covid 19, we had to decongest our boys therefore we started constructing this dormitory-an extension for the boys’ dormitory.
“We started it during lockdown in July. As you can see it’s now at roof level. We have purchased everything and we hope by the end of this month, the boys will occupy the dormitory and then we will have decongested the boys,” Dube said.
He said after the completion of the boys’ dormitory, focus will be turned to the girls’ dormitory which is expected to be finished by the end of year.
“This is our agriculture, our big garden in the school. During lockdown when everybody was locked down, the head and the workers never locked down. They were here throughout doing agriculture at its best. As you can see here now, there you will see the tomatoes, cabbages and onions and chomollieu that we planted. Here were the tomatoes, we just harvested 10 crates,” he said.
Dube said they were making a killing from the project and also enough to cater for their 660 enrollment of borders.
“We are serving enough to build or construct another block from the money that we get here. The cabbages you see here cost $200-300 around Tsholotsho and the consumption of our school is 100 heads per week- that is 100 heads multiplied by $300.
“We are saving about $30 000 every month on cabbages. And on tomatoes we are saving almost 30 thousand and on onions it’s another 30 thousand. All in all we are seeing ourselves saving almost 100 thousand RTGS per week because of what is in here.”
Dube attributed the success of the project to hard work and his personal expertise in the agricultural sector.
