Critical skills training for Bulawayo: HOCIC’s UFAL changes lives

Hope for a Child in Christ through  its Urban Food Assistance and Livelihoods program (UFAL) is capacitating its beneficiaries with complimentary livelihood trainings in an effort to empower them with skills to make their own re-usable pads, dishwasher, floor polish, petroleum jelly and to plant vegetables on idle tyres.

The communities being assisted with these livelihood trainings which began on the 21st of September and expected to end on the 26^th the same month are Njube, Entumbane, Pumula North, Lobengula, Methodist, St Peters, Mazwi and Robert Sinyoka. UFAL is implementing these trainings in a bid to equip the beneficiaries with household and self-sustaining skills which can contribute to their incomes.

In an interview, UFAL Project Officer Kudzai Mpofu said the complimentary livelihoods trainings are meant to assist the communities with life skills that the beneficiaries will use for family consumption and for income generation.

“The majority of the beneficiaries are unemployed, and they do not afford to buy sunlight liquid, floor polish, sanitary wear and they can use these livelihoods skills learnt to provide for their families and even create businesses”.

“We are targeting at least 45 beneficiaries per community so that they can also teach others,” Kudzai Mpofu said.

Unofficial statistics peg Zimbabwe at 91% unemployment rate with over half the population barely affording household utensils and sanitary wear. The International Labour Organisation stated that lack of employment opportunities in the country is one of the causes of poverty.  Linked to this is menstrual poverty which has become a major problem as most girls and women fail to buy sanitary wear. It is against this backdrop that HOCIC’s UFAL program is implementing these trainings to assist beneficiaries with skills they can use to draw income that will culminate in the reduction of household food insecurity and menstrual poverty.

The trainings are conducted under strict World Health Organisation Covid-19 regulations with social distancing, wearing of face masks and sanitizing effectively enforced. The beneficiaries who have been trained for the complementary livelihood skills so far have shown gratitude and they acknowledged UFAL for the productive trainings.

read more on COVID19: //www.who.int/emergencies/diseases/novel-coronavirus-2019?gclid=CjwKCAjwh7H7BRBBEiwAPXjadstQKTZJhzYwwfdrLH8bhT_9822w_a4aRNSMXybO27mT28gig6aXvhoCTiMQAvD_BwE

“We are pleased as we can now use the skills we have learnt to make our own floor polish and Vaseline (sic) for both family consumption and for sell” said Mr Dube, one of the beneficiaries.

The trainings are set to continue equipping UFAL beneficiaries with complementary livelihoods skills which are believed to set a long-term positive impact on the lives of the beneficiaries.