Christian Aid- tackling the challenges of food poverty and climate change in Zimbabwe.
Our planet is changing and we are all witnessing more extreme weather patterns. Many more people are feeling the impact of either damaging floods or catastrophic droughts. Sadly many in the developing world are particularly affected by these changes.
One country that is on the frontline of this crisis is the country where I was born and which I love, Zimbabwe. The World Food Programme says that about 70 percent of the population is dependent on rain-fed farming, while most farmers are smallholders with low productivity.
In rural Zimbabwe drought and food poverty particularly impacts on women and children. As men seek work in the cities women are responsible for feeding their children. Seven out of ten women rely on farming to earn a living and provide for their families. But the climate crisis has brought intense droughts that have left their land barren. With no rain, women and men can’t grow enough food and they struggle to provide for their children. Drought starves. It robs women of the chance to farm and drives their families into hunger. In times of drought, many families can only afford to eat one bowl of porridge a day. Women are hungrier, and often skip meals to share with their children what little food they have.
This year Christian Aid is focussing its appeal on Zimbabwe. Below is the story of a grandmother, Janet Zirugo, who is being empowered through Christian Aid to cope with the challenges of climate change, desperate hunger and punishing drought.
‘One year, there was so little food. Rains had not fallen. We ate things which we wouldn’t eat in normal times. When I could I made porridge and gave it to the children, then removed a portion and put it down for the dogs. The children picked up the dogs’ share because they weren’t full. When I saw this, I knew the situation had become unbearable and I thought my family would die,’ said Janet.
Janet brought her family through this painful time with the support of Christian Aid’s BRACT programme (Building Resilience through Absorptive and Adaptive Capacities for Transformation).
BRACT helps the most at-risk communities in Zimbabwe to prepare for and adapt to the changing climate. Working with local partners, Christian Aid’s work empowers vulnerable communities to grow drought-tolerant crop, teaches women like Janet how to grow food in dry seasons and helps families to build storerooms to preserve food so they have the resilience to bounce back from future droughts. Families learn to eat more healthy, nutritious food and gain new skills for alternative sources of income when agriculture fails.
With the support of Christian Aid’s BRACT programme Janet now harvests enough surplus food to share with her neighbours while also storing enough to survive future droughts.
Christian Aid has empowered Janet. ‘My life is changing,’ she says. ‘This project is uplifting us. We are thankful’. The photos below show Janet, her grandchildren Taonga and Mufaro, Janet watering her fine beans and happy, well -fed children playing!
Christian Aid wants to help many more women like Janet