With most rural households living below the poverty datum line, it is a different story for eight (8) industrious women from Chirumanzu district who are into baking.

The 8 women are now financially independent and own a sustainable enterprise, thanks to Hand in Hand Zimbabwe interventions being implemented under the Community Upliftment Project (CUP).

In all this, the Self Help Group chairperson gives credit to the business trainings members received from Hand in Hand Zimbabwe which he says enabled them to have a deeper understanding on how to run lucrative income generating projects.

“After completing a well detailed module on opportunity identification, we decided to start a baking enterprise in February 2021.

“Coupled with the knowledge from the managing money module, we were highly confident in starting the business.

“The business mentoring and coaching sessions we received, also helped us to manage our funds and come up with an enterprise growth strategy,” he said.

The group produces an average of 1800 plain buns per month which they sell to individual community members and local stores.

“We managed to build a Dutch oven from group proceeds and we hope this will help us to increase our production,” Constance, a group member said.