First Lady’s empowerment projects inspire Batswana delegation
. . . itching to start similar ventures back home
THE visiting First Lady of Botswana and her delegation were on Wednesday left awestruck at the high level of investment by First Lady Dr Auxillia Mnangagwa in empowering communities with resources and skills.
This has transformed the lives of many people, right from the grassroots level, who are now contributing significantly to the growth of the country’s economy.
The visitors were taken on a breathtaking tour of 71-year-old Gogo Getrude Mberi’s house in Waterfalls, an Agric4She beneficiary, where they witnessed inspiring projects that include poultry production, gardening and mushroom production at a small scale.
Ever energetic, Amai Mnangagwa is a woman par excellence and the empowerment of women and girls runs in her veins.
A few years ago, the First Lady launched a first of its kind urban transformational programme aimed at uplifting the less-privileged through income generating projects.
She opened community gardens equipped with drip irrigation to allow all-year-round production of crops and poultry project with 29 500 road runner chickens.
The mother of the nation also availed broiler chicks and feed for women, youths, the elderly, those with disabilities and widows as part of her nationwide empowerment programme.
Gogo Mberi a widow, became a beneficiary and has never looked back since then.
Through the projects, she has managed to build a house and bought vehicles for herself.
Mrs Mberi said she owed her success to the First Lady whose teachings she said are valuable and life changing.
“My place here in Waterfalls is also my place of work. I rear chickens, do gardening and also grow mushrooms. I am always occupied because there is always something to do all the time. I felt happy seeing Amai coming back here as she always do monitoring our projects and encouraging us to always work hard.
“She usually comes to see how I work and how I do things here. She is a mother who uplifts us as women especially widows. As the women of Zimbabwe, we are forever thankful. As widows, Amai is always telling us that broken crayons still colour and this keeps us going and pushing hard to do more,” Gogo Mberi said with a broad smile.
Mrs Masisi could not hide her elation and quipped: “We just saw beautiful projects here. A lady who is a widow didn’t give up when she was told by Amai that a broken crayon can still colour.
“Everybody is so inspired, we are also inspired. From the scientists, from the science perspective and the ladies from the Botswana community, we are all inspired with what we saw here at Gogo’s house.
“This broken crayon I can also use it at a personal level and I will show this broken crayon in my own country. This story is really about inspiration, inspiration and I maintain that inspiration because I have seen it first-hand. The evidence is all here,” she said.
Dr Mnangagwa weighed in with a brief background of Gogo Mberi and how hard work had enabled her to put food on the table and build a decent home for her family.
“I wanted to say to the women in our country and to those who are going to see this programme in Botswana, Ambuya has done a lot here, despite being a widow. She was widowed when she was 29-years-old. Since then she didn’t get married, neither did she gave up in life.
“She continued and told herself that these are my children and I will work for them and she continued. You know what happens when you are a widow. This and that happens. So and so says this, but she got composed and she knew what she wanted to do for the family. “That is where we are today. She has defied the odds and we have seen the projects that she is doing. She even built a house for her family. God does not give you a problem that you cannot solve don’t forget that. So Ambuya we want to thank you so much.
“Our women, ladies of the night and single mothers should not look down upon themselves. Life is there out there, they need exposure to see what other women are doing. We say come to the programmes and work for your children in an environment which gives you dignity. Women, we need our space of dignity,” Dr Mnangagwa said.