Leaving no one behind/ nurturing the future – SIRP’s quest to empower rural youths in Zimbabwe

 

Leaving no one behind/ nurturing the future – SIRP’s quest to empower rural youths in Zimbabwe

We were parked under the huge Mopane tree near the agricultural extension office at Tshovani Irrigation Scheme. A few goats huddled under an acacia tree to seek shade from the harsh February sun. As we waited patiently, we heard the rumble of an engine before a green and white motor cycle and rider emerged from the curve on the road to the recently rehabilitated scheme. The rider  stopped his motorbike a few metres from us, removed his helmet to reveal a young face, perhaps in his  late twenties. As he disembarked from his motorcycle and started walking towards us, he cracked a wide smile.

His name was Brian Garwe, a new type of youth in the rural areas. Garwe is a farmer,  one of the 126 farmers at the recently rehabilitated 360 hectare Tshovani Irrigation Scheme in Chiredzi District of Masvingo Province in Zimbabwe. What sets him apart from the other farmers in the scheme is his age. Young people are often non-participants in agricultural activities in Zimbabwe for many reasons and often migrate to the cities or the diaspora in search of employment. One of the reasons for non-participation in the agricultural sector is lack of  access to agricultural land.

Zimbabwe is a youthful country with an estimated 68% of its population between the ages of 18 and 35. The country’s  National Youth Policy identifies the following priorities for empowering the youth to participate and contribute to the socio-economic development of the nation:

(i)              provision of opportunities for sustainable livelihoods and decent work for all young men and women

(ii)             assisting youth in attaining knowledge, skills and experiences required to enable them to effectively participate in national development and society as a whole

(iii)           promotion of the rights and freedoms of youths paying special attention to empowering previously marginalised sections such as young women and girls and youths with disabilities

Although unemployment is high in both rural and urban areas, it remains higher in the rural areas where an estimated 49% male youth and 52% of their female counterparts are unemployed. The challenge of inclusion is often more pronounced in the rural areas where the main source of livelihood is agricultural activity.

According to Chipenda and Tom (2019 ), land is a key resource for both productive and social use while Kumeh and Omulo (2019) underline its importance in the attainment of food and nutrition security. Food and nutrition security is  necessary for the realization of sustainable development goals (SDGs) that aim to reduce hunger and poverty in the world. In countries like Zimbabwe, patriarchal biases, among other factors affect access to agricultural land by youth.  (Chambati and Mazwi 2020) note that this is often seen through a culture of dominance by male elders which is highly prevalent in Zimbabwe. They also cite the unwillingness of some of youths  to recognize farming as a career. Garwe therefore emerges as a complete opposite of the above assertion, having inherited a plot from his elderly mother who was willing to cede her plot in the irrigation scheme to him. The decision by Garwe’s mother to cede land to her son, ensured that he had access to land. Garwe  utilized his land to produce crops which he sold to earn an income, which has economically empowered him. The youth managed to acquire various assets such as his motor bike, cattle, donkeys and goats.

While land could be available to youths such as Garwe, another stumbling block to success in agriculture has been the lack of requisite skills and knowledge. Without the requisite farming and marketing skills  many young people shy away from the sector and view it as unprofitable. The intervention by the Smallholder Irrigation Revitalisation Programme (SIRP) through availing various forms of training has transformed Garwe’s and other similar youths’ knowledge and  attitude towards farming. The combination of courses such as Good Agricultural Practices (GAPS)  and Farming as a Business (FaaB) revolutionised the way agriculture was being conducted in irrigation schemes and adjacent rain fed areas. While previously, Brian and his family only cultivated tomatoes for family consumption, the training brought by SIRP and its partners empowered the young farmer with skills which enabled him to cast his net wider in terms of his both his production and marketing. Garwe began to conduct market research before venturing into the field to plant any crop in his 3-hectare plot. In this way, he  managed to get more profits which  enabled him to acquire various assets from the income that he made after the sale of his crops.

So successful was his agricultural venture that his peers and other farmers  decided to learn from him. He said after his story was featured on the SIRP  X (formerly Twitter) handle, other farmers became curious to understand his way of farming. Today, Garwe has partnered with a group of seven other farmers in a group where they share ideas on tomato production. For youths like Garwe, who have access to land, the future is brighter in the rural areas than in the cities with their bright lights. In the rural areas where they are able to access land in the irrigation schemes, youths are self- employed, self-empowered and economically independent.

As we leave Chiredzi, one cannot help but think  of those youths who  have  no access to agricultural land.  However, not all is doom and gloom for them, as we find out the next scheme, Insukamini in Midlands Province In addition to the agricultural courses offered by SIRP also offered vocational training courses to youths. Agbara et al (2018), note that vocational training enables a person to be useful and resourceful in order to achieve progress towards contributing to the advancement of society. Human resources that are technically skilled and trained are a nation's greatest asset and a prerequisite for long-term economic growth (Abid et al, 2020). Under this component, SIRP targeted to train 2000 youth under its Component 1 which focused on Sustainable Smallholder Irrigation Development and  Component 2 which focused on Climate Smart Agriculture and Market Access. As of June 2023, a total of  2085 youths had been trained under the two components. Of these, 1363  youth were trained under Component 2 while  722  youth were trained under Component 1. A total of 883 females and  1 202 males were trained across the two components.

 Working together with Zimbabwe’s vibrant and resourceful agricultural and vocational colleges ,the programme offered training  in baking and confectionery, bricklaying, electrical and welding. This was combined with mobile training sessions in the irrigation schemes which were conducted under the programme’s Irrigation Rehabilitation and development component and these focused on canal construction and repair.

 At the Insukamini Irrigation Scheme greater scheme area, we met one of the beneficiaries of the project, Remnant Ngulube. Standing in front of an ablution facility that he built Ngulube chronicles his story, “I reside in Ndudzo Village and I am one of the youths who received vocational youth training under SIRP. We started our bricklaying training at Exchange Irrigation Scheme in Silobela then proceeded to Mlezu College of Agriculture. The training helped me a lot and  I am now at a level where I can generate income through the skills and knowledge that I attained.”

Ngulube  now earns up to US$200 per month depending on availability of work within the area. His projects have included  flooring and building poultry housing for the community. He pointed at the completed structure, “One of the structures that I erected is this toilet. Besides carrying out bricklaying as a business, I have also decided to use my building skills to upgrade my own home. I am renovating my houses  and working on the floors.”

Ngulube has also imparted his skills to other youths in the area and now works with two others. “ I have trained other youths that I work with. The team that I trained is now able to carry out work even in my absence. We are grateful to SIRP who provided us with the starter kit soon after training as well as protective clothing. The skills that I acquired have made a lot of difference in my life as I am now able to earn money  to buy the food that I need. My nutrition and that of my family have greatly improved. I am so delighted that most people acknowledge that I do quality work which has opened up  more opportunities within the community in which I reside”.

While Ngulube has used his newly acquired skills to create employment for himself and other young persons, other youths that benefitted under SIRP such as Tendai Muchochotwa of Romsley Irrigation Scheme in Manicaland secured employment with one of the contractors who is  carrying out the massive rehabilitation that will see 384 hectares being put under irrigation. Muchochotwa is part of the team that built the seven pumphouses, allowing him to refine his building skills while earning much needed income for his family. In future, when the irrigation scheme needs further rehabilitation Muchochotwa and other similarly trained youths can make the necessary repairs to the scheme infrastructure such as the electricals and irrigation canals. At the moment, the youths are employed by various contractors in irrigation rehabilitation and other employment ventures. At the same time, they are part of the plans to ensure the scheme continues to run viably after  SIRP.

One of the most forgotten demographics among the youths are young married women. Most of the women look after their homesteads while their husbands work in the towns or in neighbouring  countries. These young women play the role of mother, herd boy and caregiver to the children and elderly. When other unmarried youths and their  male counterparts go for training in vocational colleges, these young women often have no one to look after their young children and the livestock. As a result, they are often unable to attend training in vocational colleges. To address the gap, SIRP conducted the hugely popular mobile youth training sessions. While offering courses that are  popular with all youths, the emphasis was  on courses preferred by young women. Under this initiative, the programme took trainers to the rural areas where the youths were trained during the day and went back to their families in the evening.

Under this initiative, the attendance  improved for they female youths. Young women  learned to sew, bake and even do bricklaying.  The other advantage of this type of training was that it become a cost saver. While vocational training in technical colleges had cost implications in terms of bus fares for the youths, accommodation  and catering, under the mobile youth training, the programme only catered for meals for the trainees as they went back home every evening. Compared to the equally highly successful training in vocational training centres, the initiative  proved to be more affordable and better attended, especially by young married women .