Women resort to farming for survival in KaMhlushwa
Three women make a living out of their church backyard farm.
In a bid to fight poverty, three elderly local women, Christina Sambo, Danisile Sambo and Nelly Ndlovu, turned to farming and are now reaping the rewards. These women came together and started farming in 2016 at the back of their church, the Rock Tabernacle International Ministries, and produce strawberries, spinach, beetroot, onions, tomatoes, carrots and lettuce.
“We decided to venture into farming after realising that our pension grants weren’t enough to feed our families. Anyway, we loved farming and so we decided to follow our hearts and started this little project,” said Danisile. She said farming has great potential, and they see it as a life-changing solution to their problems. “We realised that we could make money from farming and feed our families from it.” Danisile said they are getting a lot of support from local people, mostly from their neighbours.
Christina said they are planning to get more land so that they can supply more fruits and vegetable to the local people. “Water and land are some of our challenges. We want to mentor other women and empower them because we have realised that many women can do this and it can change their lives as well,” she said. Their long-term vision is to turn professional or become commercial farmers and create jobs for the young and old people in their community, because jobs are scarce and the economy is currently unfavourable.
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“Our goal is to become commercial famers and supply the country with fresh fruit and vegetables. This will also enable us to create much-needed employment opportunities for the locals. We see ourselves supplying big chain supermarkets with our fruit and veggies,” said Christina.
