We have positive news to report from our friends in Monze this year as the rains have thankfully come.
Whilst this news brings hope for a good harvest in 2025, the harvest is still months away. Consequences of the historic drought of 2023/4 are ongoing with food shortages and deepening hunger .
The generous support of our donors enabled BFZ to provide the 84 households registered to the Orphan and Vulnerable child community with emergency relief, mitigating hunger.
In January this year, BFZ provided emergency aid; mealie meal, salt and oil. Here are two of the groups receiving the much-needed aid.
We are immensely proud to be able to help the communities in times of extreme crisis, but aid is not our usual mode of operation. The OCHA (The UN Organisation for the Coordination of Humanitarian Aid) report;
With the rise in global temperatures and changing weather patterns, climate change threatens to bring more frequent and severe extreme weather to Southern Africa.
The role of BFZ is to build resilience in the face of these increasingly frequent challenges. Our projects are always developed with resilience in mind.
One such project encouraging financial sustainability is Community Banking; the training was delivered thanks to the support of donors.
This is the banking group in Kachiloma, the most rural community group supported by BFZ. They have used savings from the village banking scheme to launch a reed mat making enterprise. The group make mats together and the proceeds go into the village savings pot, which individuals can bid for loans for their needs or to launch their own income raising initiatives.
The video below is of Nadiya, one of the women in the group, who takes part in the village savings scheme.
She is saying that the village banking has helped her a lot, when there has been no income she has got a loan to buy food or books for the children. She says that before she would have to borrow from friends, but the village banking scheme is different as she can save within the scheme and then is able to take out funds in times of need.
Community banking is one of many projects supporting resilience in the Monze district. This would not happen without the continued generous support of our donors – Thank you!
