A total of 334 orphaned households have graduated from the Zoe Empowerment programme after three years of receiving various trainings and microgrants, which have enabled them to be self-reliant.
Speaking during a farewell meeting in Mponela-Dowa, the organisation’s senior program facilitator, Esther Chinkhadze, said she is impressed that there is improved livelihood among the programme’s beneficiaries.
She said: “It is quite encouraging that when we visit them, we can see changed lives among these beneficiaries who are mostly orphans and vulnerable children.”
Dowa district social welfare assistant Daniel Phungulume said Zoe’s intervention, which he described as remarkable, has assisted in improving the status of orphans and vulnerable children in the district.
“My appeal to beneficiaries is that they have to put to good use their businesses and skills so that they are able to employ others as well as to get rid of abuses that occur when people are not able to thrive on their own,” he said.
He then thanked the organisation for the gesture and appealed to the organisation to continue assisting the orphaned and vulnerable households in the district.
One of the programme’s beneficiaries from Tiyanjane Mapondera group, Mita Gelesomu, who is now a salon owner, said her business is helping her generate enough income to support herself and her dependents.
“In the past, life had been hard as I had nobody to give me the support after being abandoned by a man who had impregnated me,” she said.
The organisation empowers orphaned and vulnerable youth through a 3 years empowerment program in which the youth are trained in various aspects of life and are given microgrants to start businesses of their choice.
The empowerment programme also focuses on spiritual strength, food security, education, housing, health and child rights.
By Kondwani Kandiado
