In rural Zimbabwe, Tearfund’s local Christian partner HEFO is working with communities to help them build their resilience to climate, health and economic shocks.
📍 Matabeleland, Zimbabwe
A few years ago, HEFO worked with a community in the rural Matabeleland region in western Zimbabwe to install a borehole. From this seemingly simple new piece of infrastructure, lots of new opportunities have started to flow for the whole community – including for women, whose lives had previously revolved around the onerous and time-consuming work of gathering water – day in, day out – from a source many kilometres away.
The borehole also serves the 2000 or so head of cattle that come each day to get water, which is an incredibly positive step in a place where cattle farming is a vital part of the economy.
Jenny Beechey, one of Tearfund’s International Partnership Managers, recently visited this and other communities in Zimbabwe where Tearfund’s partners are working. While there, she reconnected with an inspiring woman named Lady Sibanda.
“I met Lady Sibanda on my last visit with HEFO, when she talked about how excited she was about the new borehole HEFO had put in,” says Jenny. “She was looking forward to HEFO helping the community to set up a nutrition garden next to the borehole.
But she didn’t wait for that to happen. Along with six other women, she started a community garden eight months ago, on land her husband put aside for them, using water from the borehole. As a group they are growing vegetables for consumption and selling. They used the money from selling vegetables to buy pots for each of the members.”
They say the water source at the top of their hill has made a huge difference to their lives. Lady says she can now bathe regularly and feel good, the water is safe to drink and no longer makes them sick, and the garden is thriving, so they eat well and can earn more.
“Lady could never have imagined a life that wasn’t fitted around hours a day just to get water, that wasn’t even very clean – so the borehole has been transformative,” says Jenny.
Related projects have received support from the Australian Government through the Australian NGO Cooperation Program (ANCP).
