Mapiye's Story

“Crops have suffered moisture stress due to less rainfall that has been received within this community,” explains Mapiye. “When there is no rainfall, their crops fail. When there is no rainfall, their livestock die… climate change can also lead to human diseases.”

Mapiye acknowledges that any initiative tackling climate change has to be, in his words, “a collective effort”. He explains how new irrigation systems, which are solar-powered, are “helping the farmers to reduce the negative effects of climate change because the farmers are able to irrigate their crops all year round. This money enables the farmers to acquire their food income and nutrition security.”

Their region is also “a very arid area which receives erratic rainfall,” he adds. “So, the farmers are now relying more on irrigation water. You can see there are sprinklers within these irrigation schemes. These are being used to irrigate crops every time.”

This system has also had a positive impact on women, who are usually tasked with travelling long distances on foot to collect and carry water. “If you use sprinklers, this reduces drudgery on women,” he observes.

Finally, having sprinklers that are powered by the sun has an added bonus, notes Mapiye: “[a] solar powered irrigation system is cheap and also it's renewable energy”.

Knowledge-sharing is another core aspect of the project Mapiye is involved in. “We have tried to help communities to adapt to climate change through capacity building, trainings and then to adapt through adopting traditional grains, which are resilient,” says Mapiye. “These traditional grains require less water for them to grow … Those are some of the strategies which have been put in by farmers and partners under this project.”

Overall, given the low cost and high positive impact of the project, Mapiye sees huge benefit in replicating it throughout Zimbabwe. But this relies on whether “funding can be found to help communities go with this type of irrigations or solar-powered irrigations”.

That’s where Oxfam can come in. Oxfam funds high-impact projects that support communities for the long-term. Through Gifts in Wills, you could leave a legacy that would keep projects like Mapiye’s going for years to come. It’s another way that you can stay in the fight for a fairer future with Mapiye, his community and beyond.