She witnessed the death of four of her seven children, most of them due to HIV/AIDS. The grandmother is now taking care of eight of her orphaned grandchildren.
In Zimbabwe rural communities, family ties are very strong. Abandoning orphaned children to a fate outside the family is simply not an option, regardless of the circumstances of the surviving relatives. Following the death of their parents, Raina had no other option but to open her house to her four grandchildren.
Within these circumstances, her eight grandchildren came to share two little thatched rooms with the old woman. Raina inevitably struggled for years to provide them with enough food and clothing. She could not afford the additional cost of school fees. Raina is now too old to work her farm alone.
Beginning in February 2014, Raina’s household started to benefit from the social cash transfer scheme in Murombedzi District in Zvimba, Mashonaland West Province of Zimbabwe. With the money she receives every month, the grandmother is able to buy food, seed and fertilizer, which recently helped to increase her harvest.
With transfers now being made through e-transfers, Raina has also been taught how to be technologically savvy by using her phone to check for payment through voice notifications, make and receive calls as well as listen to the radio. While these skills seem common – for Raina it has been revolutionary.
In the 2015/2016 agriculture season, the family harvested surplus maize and plans to sell part of it to buy other food products thus helping to diversify their diet. With the extra income she also plans to buy school uniforms for the orphaned children.
The household has enjoyed an impressive transformation since first starting on the programme. Food is no longer an issue. “We now eat better than before,” says Raina.
The family was recently able to buy chickens, and they now own a goat. Building assets is just one of the ways in which the programme impacts the lives of beneficiary families.
The Harmonised Social Cash Transfer (HSCT) programme was introduced under the Child Protection Fund supported by the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation (SDC) and other donors and is implemented by the Government of Zimbabwe through the Ministry of Public Service, Labour and Social Welfare and UNICEF.
Since the programme started in February 2012, 64’274 households with an average 321’000 people in 23 districts have benefited. The cash transfer programme aims to enable beneficiary households to increase their consumption to a level above the food poverty line, to reduce the number of ultra-poor households and to help beneficiaries avoid risky coping strategies such as child marriage.
