Water Harvesting set to extinguish poverty from Marange
WATER HARVESTING SET TO EXTINGUISH POVERTY FROM MARANGE
On fools day 1 April 2018 I was honoured to attend a meeting held at Chief Marange’s chambers with the agenda of demolishing poverty in Marange using implementation of water harvesting methods. The project being spearheaded by one Mr Casper Mamvota a resident of Marange ,St Andrews Mission.
After doing a thorough research on trying to find the root cause of all the problems the people of Marange are currently encountering, Mr Casper Mamvota said he had found out that poverty is the biggest enemy triggering and giving birth to most of the challenges we are encountering ranging from school drop outs, illegal mining, corruption, crime,prostitution, teenage pregnancies etc.
The meeting was attended by more than 50 people mostly local traditional leaders of Marange.Since Marange lies in region 5 with very little rainfall yearly ,Mr Mamvota said water harvesting methods will cancel any limitations to farming in the area. Said he got the resources for the project from a well wisher who is willing and ready to construct new dams and scooping sand from the old dams which are now sand filled and no longer able to catch water.He explained how he is going to implement the plans he get from the archives of Marange which firstly is to have a canal from Osborne dam to supply water in most of Marange areas using the planned zigzag manner. Secondly according to the archives a dam with hydro power must be constructed in Banga Village .With these irrigation schemes he said farming is going to take place not only in rain season but full utilization of land throughout the year will be a possibility there by demolishing poverty and outcry for employment. However he said he was seeking for Chief’s permission to execute the plans since he is the custodian of Marange area as a whole.
With the plans ,ideas and advantages of the project well laid Chief Marange agreed and embraced the project with open hands. He said a lot of developmental projects meant to upgrade the people of Marange are being diverted to some other places, giving an example of Marange clinic which minister of healthy Dr David Parirenyatwa approved to be upgraded to a district referral hospital.” I was shocked when the project was diverted to somewhere else and when I ask why ?,they told me they realized that there is hard water in the area. But we are surviving with our hard water, we don’t have any casualties of hard water.”,said the Chief furiously .He said that the fact that Marange is rich in diamonds yet the poorest in terms of development is an issue of concern for him . Said he is not happy that the precious stones are benefiting not only other parts of Zimbabwe but some nations like China at the expense of Marange people who are only receiving harassment, torture,marginalisation and human abuses. Leaning on these factors he gave Mr Mamvota his blessings and mandate prince Nyasha Marange his son to assist in every way and with every aid needed in order to quicken the implemention of the water harvesting project.
Compiled by
Billian Matambo Zimbabwe Diamond and Allied Workers Union (ZIDAWU)
