Drought Threatens Millions of Children as School Dropouts Rise Along With Hunger in Southern Africa

Zimbabweans are very familiar with the word ‘suffering.’ It is their daily lived experience. If it isn’t politics that is causing it, it’s sky-high inflation and unemployment. Parents continually struggle to pay school fees and feed their families. But now a severe drought is adding to their woes. Poor rainfall has led to partial or complete crop failure in most parts of the country.

The drought is exacerbating existing socio-economic vulnerabilities, particularly in rural communities that are reliant on rain-fed agriculture. Suburban communities around the major population centers are home to a growing number of people searching for any form of sustenance. Many people in these communities have grown up in sprawling suburbs with small, uninsulated houses and very small gardens. They have no experience of farming or growing vegetables and are not knowledgeable about matters concerning health and nutrition.

The good news is that in some areas our groundbreaking Movement of Life project is beginning to turn things around. Aided by the drilling of water boreholes we have helped fund, fruit and vegetable gardening schemes are now underway in a number of schools and communities around Harare, the country’s capital.

To learn more about our lifesaving Movement of Life work in Zimbabwe, see this article on our website.