Chamadzi CBO is one of the organisations that are benefiting from the USAID funded Milimo Local Capacity Building Activity. The CBO has been getting capacity building support from the Milimo Activity since 2021 in order to strengthen their organizational systems towards self-reliance and sustainability and eventually help the CBO to achieve their mandate. As part of their core mandate, Chamadzi CBO supports youth development activities in the whole Masumbankhunda area through various youth clubs that the CBO oversees. One of these youth clubs is Chikhanda of GVH Mpeniwawa which was established in 2015 with the mission of enhancing youths’ participation in community development initiatives. Chikhanda Youth Club has 31 members of which 9 are boys and 22 are girls. According to Elita Chatha, the club’s secretary, all the members
Chikhanda Youth Club members working in their irrigation-based vegetable garden from which they intend to do agri-business as social enterprise.
of the club had never received any training to equip them with skills that would help them to carry out their mission from 2015 to 2021. As such, although the club has been conducting various activities like drama and carrier talks, they have not been able to measure their impact in the community. The club has also been operating without any sustainable source of financial resources. “We are very energetic youths and willing to participate in development efforts, but we have been lacking skills to effectively do community mobilization and funds for some of our activity needs like transportation, stationery and refreshments which are required during some of the outreach activities like drama and sensitization meetings.
In August 2023, the club saw a huge opportunity to have their capacity enhanced in terms of community mobilization skills when they watched a Theatre for Development (TFD) performance staged by Chisangalalo Youth Club of GVH Kambewa which is also one of the youth clubs under Chamadzi CBO. Chisangalalo youth club got trained by the Milimo Activity on TFD as a community mobilization technique. After the training, Chisangalalo youth club was advised by the Milimo Activity facilitators to not only practice the TFD as a single club but to also cascade the acquired skills to other more youth clubs in the area.
According to Elita, when some of the members of Chikhanda Youth Club watched one of the TFD performances by Chisangaalo Youth Club, they inquired from members of Chisangalalo Youth Club to learn how they got the TFD skills and if there could be a possibility of learning from them. “We were told by the Chisangalalo Youth Club members that they got trained by Milimo Activity through Chamadzi CBO. Thy also assured us that since we are also under the same CBO, they can train us too,” said Elita.
In response to the interest expressed by Chikhanda Youth Club, Chisangalalo Youth Club members requested Milimo Activity through Chamadzi CBO to support them in cascading the community mobilization skills through TFD to Chikhanda Youth Club. Milimo Activity responded positively by supporting Chisangalalo Youth Club members as the facilitated the TFD training for Chikhanda Youth Club.
“The training was a success because we learnt how we can use theatre to mobilize the community towards finding solutions to various development problems… since then we have been using these skills and achieved a number of things, for instance, some communities have withdrawn children from child marriages following our TFD performances”, proudly explained Elita.
Elita added that apart from learning the TFD skills from Milimo Activity through Chisangalalo Youth Club, the Milimo Activity also helped Chikhanda Youth Club to discuss ways of generating funds to support their community mobilization activities. “We learnt from the Milimo Activity that we ought to be self-reliant hence a need to generate funds locally. So, we agreed as a club to start vegetable farming and when we briefed our chief about this, he supported us by giving us a piece of land to have our garden… We grew various vegetables in the garden which we’ll be selling as a club”, proudly narrated Elita.
According to Vincent Bikisoni who is the chairperson of Chikhanda Youth Club, the garden has crops like maize, beans, tomatoes, and various green vegetables. They use irrigation and their goal is to be the most reliable vegetable source in the area. “We hope to make more sells year from the vegetables and the returns will be in our treasury to carter for costs of various resources that we need in our activities. We also plan to use the funds for community philanthropy like supporting orphans and the elderly”, said Vincent.
The youths in Chikhanda Youth Club are among many young people in Malawi that are benefiting from USAID’s commitment to youth development. Child Protection and Youth Development is also one of the seven strategic pillars that CRECCOM implements its social development interventions using the award-winning Social Mobilization Campaign (SMC) model. The Milimo Activity is being implemented by CRECCOM with funding from USAID in five districts namely Lilongwe, Balaka, Mangochi, Machinga and Zomba.
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