“We work as a collective group of women where we can share skills” 

Tinotenda Kavhiza is 24 and from Chipinge, Zimbabwe. She has found community and collective power through being a member of Women and Land Zimbabwe’s Rural Women’s Assembly (RWA). Her main goal is to be financially free and being part of RWA has set her on that path.

“I started working with Women and Land in Zimbabwe (WLZ) in 2023. When I joined, I was motivated by a role model in my village that I had been watching over the years, who was leading women in agricultural skills and was part of Women and Land. I had been watching and had seen the changes in that particular family and the whole group at large. Eventually I asked to join and now, we work as a collective group of women where we can share skills, exchange knowledge, be productive and use the skills that we acquire from the network within the Rural Women’s Assembly (RWA). 

Through being part of RWA, my main goal is to be financially free and help reduce gender-based violence. Because every day, if you go to the husband and say, ‘we need this and we need that’ we end up having problems. Within our patriarchal system in Zimbabwe, the men become the boss. Through being financially free, I will my add own value to the family, add own value to my own children, so that I can be recognised as an empowered citizen, who can also work for the nation, the community, and also my own family. 

I am one of the young women who got into marriage at an early age. I am not a victim because now I am making money. I want to go back to school, and I am still in the process. Through learning with other women, I got motivated and said, I want to sponsor myself and go back to school. I don’t want to beg from the husband. I can’t go back to the family because when I got married at a young age, they were so cross with me. I just want to show them that that’s not the end of the road for me, and that I will do more. 

Besides learning to grow sweet potatoes, I also got connected to people who trained in the hand skills that are not really group related, but individual related. For example, I can do braiding and nails, and I am learning to be a beautician. But that was only because of the platforms where I managed to network and get trained. As a group, we also generate income. We do our work as a group. We share the profits.” 

It takes a village

“When I get to my RWA group and work with other women, I can share my issues so mentally, I feel I am progressing. We also go into each other’s houses and look at what each of us is lacking. Say for example a woman doesn’t have blankets for her kids, the group will make it a point to follow up. We also have a monitoring system for the young women in the group because they don’t always have someone to tell them what is important for the family. Everyone comes with ideas and asks: what do we need as young women and as mothers? 

As rural young women, finances are more of a challenge when compared to those living in areas closer to town. For example, if you want to expand your projects, you can only depend on the Rural Women Assembly and Women and Land in Zimbabwe. In the rural areas, we don’t always have electricity and as young women, when we compare with others who are now living in towns, we feel like we have been left behind. We need that electricity and energy for cooking. We go distances looking for what other people can just get easily, like firewood.” 

A call for change 

“My biggest call is: don’t forget that the majority of young women and women are in the rural areas of Zimbabwe. 

I call on the government to help rural women to have proper electricity. They should install solar panels with batteries. For us as women, we need light, for our projects, for our children to be able to read during the night and so that at least we are not just like objects out there in the rural areas. 

I also call for government support to diversify our projects. At the moment, we are only depending on the groups that are formed by Rural Women Assembly and Women and Land in Zimbabwe. But the government also need to assist us to diversify in our projects.  

I want to be financially free and expand my projects. I want to work for my children so that they will not live the same life that I lived, so I want to go back to school. I also want to be recognised as a family member and as a woman who is working for her family.”