Bulawayo’s Sizinda Community Garden Readies for the Growing Season

In a move that has seen the fast and efficient pegging of the Sizinda garden  project, members have completed the alignment and distribution of plots.

The garden members, who are mostly disadvantaged and have lost their formal employment after the severe de-industrialisation in Bulawayo, have already planted their seedlings.

The preparation of seed beds was carried out under the guidance of ZDDT’s Agricultural Extension Officer, Edward Chikwayi.

Things have moved on and the trench for the water pipeline has been completed.

Chikwayi has been visiting the project in the company of his team members in an effort to speed the garden’s progress.

The continual presence of ZDDT’s Project Manager, Angela Mason, has injected vigour in the members of the project, as they rallied behind her after she began the pegging of the garden beds.

Councillor Matengu, who is the senior member in the project, is also coming every day to work in the garden as he wants this project to succeed under his tenure as a councillor. He is excited that it will create employment, improve nutrition and increase household incomes in the community he leads.

Members, who were interviewed by ZDDT News, were ecstatic and openly told the news that they were more than ready to commit.

“This is the moment we were waiting for. We have been long crying for this kind of help and here we are with our ZDDT and their partners, putting us back on our feet to walk again,” said Mrs Ndlovu, a garden member.

Her sentiments concurred with those of Mwale who said, “If I try to comment a lot, I will spoil the boiling pot which is about to produce food for our lives. I have no more words to say but only to say, thank you ZDDT and your kind partners who value other people’s lives and pleas.”

The Sizinda Community Trust has been in action since the completion of the fencing of the area designated for agri-production under the terms of the lease granted by the City Council.