BY MUNYARADZI BLESSING DOMA
Disabled Women Support Organisation which empowers women, girls and parents of children with disability, says they engage in several income generating projects because they have vowed not to be labeled as beggars or a charity case.
The organisation is exhibiting at the 114th Edition of the Zimbabwe Agricultural Show, which is running under the theme, “Cultivating Prosperity: Growing Business. Innovating for Change. Nurturing Our Future.”
“Our main vision as an organisation is that we want to empower each other as women with disability because we have got families to take care of.
“Our families look up to us for their survival, so we realised that this vision is quite important for us because we can empower ourselves using the different talents that we have and we make products which we then sell.
“We want to show that we are not beggars or a charity model but we are actually empowering ourselves to earn a better living for ourselves and our families,” said Gladys Masembura, a Board Member of Disabled Women Support Organisation in an interview at their stand.
Masembura revealed that the organisation was formed in 2011 and is based in Harare’s Mufakose suburb.
“Our organisation mostly works with women with disability and girls with disability and also parents who have children with disability.
“Our aim is to empower and encourage each other so that we are not charity models, so we carry out income generating activities as women with disability and we take care of our families.
“So like now we have a lot of things that we are selling here; we have dolls, we have flowers and flower pots which we make using recycled materials,” said Masembura.
She added that while they are hopeful to earn a living from the several items which they sell, they have continue to face challenges when it comes to finding markets for their products.
“We have a challenge with the market for our products; we have quite a wide range but the market hasn’t been easy to come by.
“So it is just our appeal to our fellow Zimbabweans to help us with markets for products.
“We also make dish washing liquids and we also do drink production and petroleum jelly.
“We have limited funds but we can actually do a lot so that we fully empower ourselves,” added Masembura.
Masembura added that through various trainings, they had been taught about the climate change and it effects; hence they are now engaging in good environmental practices such as recycling plastics to make beautiful products.
