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Rumbidzayi Zinyuke Manicaland Bureau
A GROUP of Marange women with disabled children have formed a cooperative that will allow them to do different projects and raise money for the upkeep of their families. The cooperative, which started with only 10 members, now boasts more than 20 women, who are keen to work hard for their families. Each of the women has at least one child living with disabilities.

The women have been involved in goat and road-runner chicken rearing, as well as vegetable farming on a piece of land availed to them by the chief in their area. In an interview with The Herald last week, Mrs Angela Musaa, one of the founding cooperative members, said there were a lot of women in Marange struggling to raise children with disabilities and the department of social welfare had not been able to help them at all.

“As parents, we realised that we cannot wait for Government, or donor organisations to help us put food on the table for our disabled children. We need to work for ourselves and our children. We also need to teach our children to work for themselves in those gardens and chicken runs, so that they will not suffer much, or fail to raise some decent incomes in the eventuality that we die at some point,” she said.