Ilene Jongure
Budiriro garden, Muzenda village
In this village in the Masvingo province, Pump Aid has joined forces with international charity CARE on a pioneering gardening project which is transforming the lives of local women and their families.
The project works by creating a communal garden which is fenced off and divided up between members of the community. Pump Aid has installed two water points within the garden, which measures approximately 150m by 100m, so the gardeners can easily water their plants.
Initially control over the plots of land is given exclusively to women and if the singing and dancing which greets the Pump Aid workers when they arrive at the garden is anything to go by, the project is thriving.
The focus of the project is on disadvantaged women – three quarters of those involved are widows, while one is severely disabled after suffering a stroke. The land is split among 37 families, who each has 18 beds in which they are growing covo, tomatoes, maize and butternut squash.
Two secretaries are appointed to help run the garden, one of which is Ilene Jongure, 41. The secretaries hold monthly meetings and also organise the twice weekly watering sessions.
Ilene has three children and a husband who helps her with the gardening and also works as a farm labourer. She said: “We had nothing before this, we were starving because we had no way to grow vegetables or any way to pay for school fees.
“We were not able to send our children to school but now we can.”
The Budriro garden project has been running for two years and Ilene estimated so far the families have made around $75 a year. This is by selling three buckets of tomatoes three times a year, which cost $5 each, and by selling covo, which raises $30 a year.
But it is early days and Ilene is confident these sums will go up. She explained the maize and butternut squash were new this year and so had not yet been harvested. She also explained some money had been reinvested into the garden through buying seeds, manure and tools, and so had not gone to the villagers yet.
But the women have big plans for their garden. The exuberant group, who are constantly laughing, singing, and joking, plan to pool their resources to bring in bigger profits.
Ilene explained: “We are going to engage some partners like schools, hotels and supermarkets so they buy our produce in bulk – that will get us more income.”
Before the project started, Ilene’s youngest daughter was not in school because her mother could not afford the secondary school fees which stand at between $30 and $50 a term. She and her two older brothers, aged 24 and 19, had both been to primary school which is cheaper, at around $7 per term, but their education stopped there. But thanks to the garden, Ilene’s 14-year-old daughter is now at secondary school.
Ilene said: “I am so proud of her, she is a very clever girl and she wants to be a nurse. I am so pleased that now I can buy her uniform and books and give her that chance.”
But the pumps are not only boosting families’ income; they are also bringing health benefits. Before the pumps were installed the villages relied on a borehole which Ilene said often ran dry. The water was clean but there was simply not enough to go around. As a result they used to dig small wells along the river bed, which meant harvesting dirty water, often contaminated by other people using the same wells and also cattle. Ilene recalled seeing worms swimming around in the water and said people often suffered from stomach problems as a result.
The gardening community say the project is also helping them combat Africa’s big killers, AIDS and HIV. The women sing about how good nutrition helps with the treatment against AIDS. Two people in their community have the disease and the women say their improved diet, thanks to the garden, is helping the antiviral drugs do their work. The women also plan to start a communal herb garden to help the fight diseases and infections.
Greater community ties have also been forged thanks to the Pump Aid and CARE project.
Ilene said : “At first it was a challenge working together and some people refused to join us thinking it was not going to work. But it is working and other people are envious of us and say they should have joined.”
She said friendships between the women have blossomed since the garden was started.
Ilene explained: “I feel a lot closer to the community. If one member of the community has a problem, maybe there is a funeral and they have to feed a group of people, then the others will get together and give her something from their vegetable beds. Or if someone’s kitchen is badly burnt the community can raise money to help replenish it.”
The secretary added: “People voted for me to be secretary because they know I love my work and I am able to do it. We really hope the future is going to be better so we can send our children to boarding school and with more income we will be able to do that.”
When asked why women were picked to look after the gardens and not men, Ilene said: “I believe CARE and Pump Aid know that we take care of the needs of our families, we are responsible for that, so it makes sense to put us in charge.”
Laughing mischievously, Ilene admitted: “Initially some of the men did not think it was a serious project and would not be successful but now they are seeing it’s a serious project. But it’s hard for them to join now because the rates have gone up.”
It was free to join when CARE first launched the project, but the villages pooled money together to build more fences and put in a toilet block, so the rates have now gone up and it costs $150 to join.
But it’s not all bad news for the menfolk; Ilene said many were involved in the project.
She said: “Now the men are supporting the idea and sometimes they help with things like digging and putting up fencing, so they are working on it too.”
