Hand in Hand Zimbabwe last week donated grocery hampers to 10 people living with disabilities, 11 elderly and one child-headed family in Ward 1 Bulilima district as part of the organisation’s efforts to fight hunger in vulnerable communities during the COVID-19 Pandemic.

This comes as the disabled and the elderly are facing the brunt of the pandemic due to lack of social safety nets. With this in mind, HiH Zim partnered with the Government of Zimbabwe – through the department of Social Welfare – to ensure that grocery hampers reach the intended community members.

To guarantee transparency and fairness in food distribution, selection of the beneficiaries was jointly conducted by the local leadership and the department of Social Welfare, while home visits were also done to assess household needs.

Bulilima District, which falls in the dry agro-ecological regions of IV & V, has lost most of its productive population to neighbouring countries leaving only the elderly and young children. Under normal circumstances, the diaspora population send remittances to the rural population.

But with neighbouring countries on lockdown and informal trading at a halt, remittances are no longer coming. The situation has been made worse by the fact that most of the people living in neighbouring countries are now coming back home and are in quarantine centres, thus depriving the vulnerable people in the border-line district of the much-needed income.