Nac pours $300k to end prison malnutrition
THE National Aids Council (Nac) has injected $300 000 into its partnership with the Zimbabwe Prison and Correctional Services (ZPCS) and traditional leaders to provide nutritional support to inmates and other vulnerable members of society.
Traditional leaders under the Zunde RaMambo/ Isiphala SeNkosi scheme have been working with Nac since 2004, and ZPCS chipped in last year to provide technical expertise and labour in food production for the programme. Nac Communications director Ms Medelina Dube told Sunday News that under the partnership, Nac provides farming inputs while chiefs help with disbursement of produce to needy people in their communities.
She said under the Zunde RaMambo/ Isiphala SeNkosi Programme, Nac has provided ZPCS with maize seed, fertiliser and recently irrigation equipment to produce grain for inmates and other vulnerable populations.
“Nac got involved in the Isiphala SeNkosi/Zunde RaMambo programme since 2004 but the collaboration with ZPCS started in the 2016 farming season. We have registered significant harvests from ZPCS. ZPCS provides basically expertise and labour.
“Nac has so far given $300 000 to ZPCS. It is difficult to state how much has been given to Zunde since it started in the Zim dollar era,” she said.
Ms Dube explained how the partnership with ZPCS came about to augment the support the council had already been giving to the Zunde RaMambo/Isiphala SeNkosi project.
“A study in 2012 indicated that HIV prevalence in prisons is 28,6 percent and that whereas treatment was available for prisoners, nutrition was a major challenge. The National Aids Council made a deliberate decision to give nutritional support in the country’s prisons and partnered with the Zimbabwe Prisons and Correctional Services. It was later on decided that since the ZPCS has expertise and free labour as well as land, farming implements allocated to chiefs should be grown by ZPCS and the harvest is then shared between the Isiphala SeNkosi/Zunde RaMambo programme and prisons,” said Ms Dube.
The Nac communications director said a number of people had benefited from the partnership which was also aimed at mitigating the impact of HIV and Aids on communities.
“From the Isiphala SeNkosi/Zunde RaMambo programme, a number of needy people have been assisted and as Nac we believe that we managed to prevent risky sexual behaviour as some girls who could have decided to sell their bodies for food did not eventually do so because they got food,” she said.
Targeting beneficiaries are prison inmates, orphans and vulnerable children, patients on home-based care, child headed families and families that look after orphans.
Ms Dube said Nac was also supporting ZPCS to carry out various projects aimed at providing nutritional support to prisoners, again with the ultimate objective of reducing the impact of HIV among prison inmates.
“Some prisons are carrying out goat rearing, piggery and fish projects supported by Nac. These projects are for nutritional support for inmates.
“Support to ZPCS is given to provide nutritional support to ensure that HIV positive inmates have good nutrition which is a requirement in HIV management,” she said.
The partnership between Nac and the Zunde RaMambo/ Isiphala SeNkosi programme started in 2004 after a chiefs’ workshop in Masvingo whose agenda was to explore ways of bringing chiefs in the fight against the epidemic and discuss the roles they could play. It was Nac’s feeling that involvement of chiefs would also help to fight cultural practices that negate efforts to combat the epidemic, and strengthen those cultural practices that have the potential of reducing HIV transmission and mitigate the impact of Aids.