Mothers support girls’ education across Zimbabwe

Over the last two years, a network of eighty Mothers’ Support Groups has sprung up across Zimbabwe to help some of the poorest children in these communities to go to school. With Camfed’s support and encouragement, these remarkable women are working across 14 districts to provide a safety net of financial and practical support to thousands of children.

Gertrude Mazhindu is the Chairperson of one such Mothers’ Support Group in Chokodza, in the Wedza district of Zimbabwe. Since January 2005, Gertrude’s group has been able to help 63 children in the district to return to school.

The mothers’ group is well known throughout the region for the products they sell to raise money to fund their work. People come from far and wide to buy the group’s homemade clay pots, shoes, tablecloths and natural products such as honey, peanut butter and vegetables.

Some of the women in the group have sewing machines, which they use to make new clothes out of old cloth. They also make shoes, which they give to the neediest children in their communities or sell for $Z50,000 (about £1.14 – the same price as a bar of soap).

Thanks to the profits the mothers make from selling their homemade wares, they are able to buy pens, text books and writing pads for children who are on the verge of dropping out of school.

The group of 16 women comes together three times a month from different areas of Wedza, bringing with them knowledge about the most vulnerable families in each community. They then share this information with the group and together they decide which families to support.

Once a month, the mothers go to visit families in crisis, such as households headed by the very young or the very old, or those with malnourished or sick members. The women bring food and cook for these families, wash their clothes or simply talk to them about the problems they face – all vital services for families who are feeling isolated and overwhelmed.

As well as giving social and material support to the neediest in their own communities, the group also acts as a support network for the members themselves, helping to share skills and boost confidence.

Since Gertrude joined the Mothers’ Support Group last year, the mother of four has been able to support her own family with food and clothing through the group’s hardship fund while her husband has been out of work.

“We take our inspiration from Camfed, who came here to assist our children,” says Gertrude. “Now we want to help other children.”

Camfed has worked in Zimbabwe since 1993 and over that time has helped to build up networks and coalitions at a grassroots level that will help young women to go to school now and for the long term. Mothers’ Support Groups are just one example of how Camfed is building support networks that will gain in strength and sustain change over time. Information is being shared between the different mothers’ groups by Camfed staff in Zimbabwe, who are also supplementing the groups’ resources with grants and training.

“Mothers’ Support Groups have broken the glass ceiling and made rural women visible as human beings and social actors by making it possible for the many orphaned children to remain in school and at the same time provide each other with the much needed shoulder to lean on and motivation,” says Angeline Mugwendere, Director of CAMA, the network of Camfed-supported secondary school graduates.

A poem written by a member of the Mothers’ Support Group in Wedza

You are my daughter
You are a girl child, my daughter,
You are my child and confidante
You are my helper and successor
That Camfed has lifted you
So that you are empowered

Camfed has changed your life
You are educated now
Not illiterate like me,
You are informed,
From books, teachers, friends and ME.

You know ME as your mother
Whose knowledge is blocked
Mother whose mother was blocked
Who could not talk about taboos
Let alone the unsafe issues

When I wanted to know what taboos meant
When I pry into unsafe issues
It is unsafe to be unsafe mother
But being a mother my life is always unsafe

Thank you, daughter, for the help
The soap, oil, food you bring
The fees for your sisters and brothers
Has brought the snores which had gone from my sleep

Written by Mrs Colette Mutangadura