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In Gokwe North, It Starts With A Community of Determined Residents

on  August 4, 2022

Meet Blyberg and Jacquelyne. Husband and wife, parents, farmers, program participants and community leaders are just a few of Blyberg’s and Jacquelyne’s roles in their community. The couple and their family live in the Kushinga community in Gokwe North, Zimbabwe — a drought-prone area located in between two wildlife game parks, causing it to be vulnerable to elephants that destroy crops and hyenas that prey on farmers’ livestock. Blyberg and Jacquelyne, along with many other community members, rely on farming to provide for their family but face many challenges due to lack of water and wildlife in their area. The community has faced other food security challenges for years. Many children were not attending school due to hunger and lack of food provided at the school, and many farmers relied on time-consuming manual labor to process their maize and small grains because there weren’t grain shellers and oil pressing machines available. Rise Against Hunger and partner ADRA International began working in Gokwe North in 2017, implementing the Southern Africa School Feeding Initiative to provide school meals to food-insecure children. In 2019, the initiative expanded into the Planting Seeds for Strong Communities project, which aims to support long-term food security and stimulate the local agricultural economy by establishing home-grown school feeding programs and training farmers in climate-smart agriculture and cultivation techniques and market skills. 

As participants of the project, Blyberg and Jacquelyne have received training in crops, livestock and Village Savings and Loan Association groups and became graduates of the Farmer Market school. Because of his hard work and dedication, Blyberg was selected to be a Village Agent to train other Farmer Market School and Village Savings and Loan association groups. He has established six Village Savings and Loan Association groups with 129 members collectively and helped established Farmer Market School groups with 124 total members. “I have gained respect in my community and confidence as a community facilitator… my favorite part of the day is doing trainings to my community,” he said. These trainings have also empowered Jacquelyne, and other women in her community, to save money and start their own small businesses.As more parents earn incomes through the Village Savings and Loan Association groups and marketing of crops, they have been able to pay school fees for their children, causing school enrollment to increase within the community. With trainings in new agriculture techniques, a new garden was established near the river in response to the area’s water challenges that supports a homegrown school feeding initiative. “We used to have malnutrition in the community, but the feeding project has helped to reduce malnutrition,” Blyberg said. Along with the garden, schools received a sunflower oil pressing machine and maize sheller, which have enabled farmers to process and market their crops more quickly and easily. Profits from the crop processing have enabled the community to employ four teachers for the school. “My kids get meals at school; this helps to reduce the need to worry about meals during the day. My wife is happy to be free to earn her own money to help pay for other family needs, such as groceries and payment of school fees for our kids. We have been able to buy two other goats from our savings to add to the ones we had at home,” expressed Blyberg. 

The impact this project has had in this community is amazing. Both schoolchildren and farmers have been positively impacted, and the community is moving forward on its journey out of hunger. It truly starts with a community of dedicated people to create a lasting impact. Just as Blyberg and Jacquelyne have helped to build a strong, determined community, we have built our own amazing community of determined Hunger Champions. Let’s continue building hunger-free communities around the world together!

About the Author

McKenzie Grimes is the Marketing Coordinator for Rise Against Hunger. She strives to empower volunteers worldwide and has a passion for sharing people’s stories.

More Posts by McKenzie Grimes

Strength, Stability And Hope

The gift that filled Nelly’s table.

“We were yielding very little, and the crops could not sustain us the whole year,” Nelly remembers. As a mother of seven and a farmer with two decades of experience, the stress of inconsistent yields was all-consuming. A poor harvest not only strained her family financially, but also limited their own meals to just two a day. Their story reflects that of many in their fishing and farming village near a lake in the Karonga district of northern Malawi. Here, heavy rainfall makes conventional farming methods nearly impossible. The entire village is, quite literally, saturated in food insecurity — a reality that leaves families struggling to survive season after season without a dependable source of nourishment.

In 2019, Nelly began participating in Harvesting Prosperity and Resilience, a sustainable agriculture project implemented by Rise Against Hunger in partnership with the Foundation for Community Support Services (FOCUS). The project works with 3,100 smallholder farmers in Malawi’s Karonga and Mzimba districts to strengthen food and nutrition security by improving production methods, nutrition practices and household income.

Just one year later, Nelly was ready to expand the variety of crops on her farm. What land once only produced maize began to flourish with sesame, cowpeas, rice and groundnuts during the rainy season (summer), as well as maize and vegetables during the dry season (winter). Through climate-smart agriculture training, she learned new techniques like manure making, pit planting and mulching, crop rotation and intercropping. Equipped with these tools, Nelly’s farm began to thrive.

After the 2023–2024 growing season, she sold enough produce to purchase an ox cart. Her harvests in 2024-2025 season yielded over 500 pounds of crops, including 22 bags of groundnuts, seven bags of maize, 12 tins of sesame and three bags of rice. With this surplus, she was able to invest in a motorbike, which she now uses to transport African doughnuts (mandasi) that she cooks and sells — creating yet another source of income for her family.

The transformation reaches far beyond her finances. Nelly now has the stability to provide for her husband and children. “I am able to eat different food types, pay school fees for my children and fulfill the visions that I have made with my family,” she beams. “I am now sleeping peacefully without any fears of food or paying school fees for the children.”

Her leadership has also grown. Today, Nelly serves as a leader in the Harvesting Prosperity and Resilience project, teaching other farmers in her district to adopt climate-resilient, labor-saving practices. By sharing her knowledge, she is multiplying her impact — empowering her neighbors to experience the same transformation she has achieved.

Across Nelly’s community, food and economic security are on the rise. Lombani, a government extension officer for the region, explains, “I can see the community is being transformed in the sense that in the area, there is food, income and nutrition security. Development is also happening at the household level.”

Nelly reflects on what it means to invest in holistic programs that address the root causes of hunger: “We are now healthy people. Children are going to school after eating their breakfast, having high yields and different types of crops due to conservation agriculture practices. With the support from the project, we have food, and we can access other food items from the market after selling our produce.”

This is the gift that fills: a future full of stability, strength and hope. It fills tables with food, families with security and communities with the resources to thrive. It’s an investment in futures rooted in resilience and hope.