by dapp | Jun 11, 2018 | News
DAPP Zimbabwe is pleased to release its 2017 Annual report , demonstrating the value of its work over the past year.
The report includes an overview of projects and their activities , summary of major achievements, data on total projects delivered, partners worked with, people reached, case studies of particularly successful projects in 2017.
DAPP Zimbabwe reached over 300,000 people in 8 districts across the country, through 14 development projects in the areas of education, community development, agriculture and health. DAPP’s work is contributing towards the Zimbabwean Government’s Sustainable Development efforts.
The projects implemented by DAPP are holistic in nature, driven by the community, and focused on creating
development together with the most marginalised in the society.
Click the link for the full report
by dapp | Jun 2, 2018 | News
Imagine the beginning of the agricultural season, the farmers have prepared and planted after the first rains. But the rains fail to continue or are not sufficient. We are seeing this more often as the climate gets warmer resulting in less food being produced. Farmers are usually left with limited options. However DAPP Farmers’ clubs is in the forefront in offering farmers viable solutions to reduce the shocks.
DAPP Farmers’ Club Zimbabwe in partnership with United Nations Environmental Programme (UNEP), work together with small scale farming communities of Gutu and Mutasa districts in Zimbabwe. Through a 2 year project which enrolled a 2000 farmers called “Sustainable Lifestyles and Education Programme”, farmers are trained on how they can prepare themselves against some of these shocks.
So, what have small scale farmers been taught to reduce crop losses under difficult weather conditions?
Building up living soils to withstand dry spells
Soil that has a mixture of animal and plant matter and a lot of life is good in storing water and nutrients thus allowing maximum growth of crops and plants. Farmers were taught ways to build up soils such as covering the soil with mulching, crop rotation, adding compost manure, minimal soil disturbance as well as planting fast maturing crop varieties. Farmers enrolled in the Farmers’ Club project received training on water conservation and were encouraged to shift from conventional tilling, burning crop residue and cutting down trees to conservation farming.
Commenting on the benefits from the program to date, farmer Ackson Manjowe in Mutasa said “mulching irikutibatsira kuchengetedza hunyoro mumakomba atinodyara zvinoita kuti mbeu dzedu dzive ne utano hwakanaka uye musanganiswa wemashizha nemanyowa watinoshandisa unopa chikafu kuzvirimwa” (mulching helps to keep soil moisture while the leaves and manure mixture provides the right nutrients for the plants).
Feeding the soil thus helps farmers build rich soils and ultimately reduce the impact of dry spells.
Adopting home grown solutions
As climate change continues to threaten food security farmers in our project have adopted home grown solutions to mitigate against climate change shocks. The farmers are encouraged to switch to small grains such as rapoko, root crops like cassava as well as early planting fast maturing varieties that guarantee food security in short rain seasons.
They are also encouraged and helped to set up nutrition gardens to produce vegetables that thrive under low cost irrigation. A total of 100 rope and washer pumps are currently being installed in Mutasa and 7 bush pumps in Gutu to irrigate the gardens and to provide safe water for drinking.
Planting trees for a more stable environment
Trees are vital for our environment as they reduce soil erosion and maintain the water cycle that bring us rain. They provide shade and food for our animals as well as wood. They are thus worth conserving and replacing. Our farmers, in their groups, mobilise each other to construct firewood saving stoves and rocket stoves so as to reduce wood consumption. They plant live fences to reduce the cutting down of indigenous trees for poles. All open spaces are utilized to make sure that we meet our target of planting 200 000 eucalyptus for woodlots, 40 000 fodder trees, 40 000 fruit trees and 100 live fences. One of the trees that farmers are planting is Leucaena that can be used for livestock feed as well as providing green manure.
Sticking together to overcome challenges
The DAPP Farmers’ Club approach encourages farmers to not only stick together but to also share knowledge and join hands in production and marketing. A club usually has 50 farmers who are divided into 5 groups of 10 called core groups who share information and train together. They work and learn in a common garden and a demo-field and go on to practice in their individual fields. During seed fairs they share crops that grow well under difficult conditions and learn from farmers around them.
by dapp | Jun 1, 2018 | News
“DAPP Zimbabwe subscribes to the National Constitution which gives every child the right to quality education and that can only be achieved through providing a highly conducive and pleasant learning environment.” This was said by DAPP Zimbabwe’s Operations Director Mathias Paradzai at the official handover of completed school facilities at Chemhondoro Secondary School in Shamva District recently.
The facilities’ development was spearheaded by DAPP Zimbabwe through a $72,947 grant from the Government of Japan which saw the completion of a new classroom block and two teachers’ houses, refurbishment of an incomplete classroom block and ablution block. The school was also provided with desks and chairs for 121 students and four teachers.
Speaking at this occasion Mathias Paradzai commended the Japanese Embassy for not only investing in classroom blocks but in teacher accommodation. “We deliberately included the teacher’s accommodation so that the teachers stay motivated to deliver their best to change these students’ future. It remains an issue that most qualified teachers opt to teach in urban areas due to accommodation challenges in rural and small cities” He added that prioritizing teacher accommodation needs improve education in Zimbabwe
Speaking on the same occasion the ambassador of Japan to Zimbabwe H.E. Mr Toshiyuki Iwado, said that Japan attached great importance to basic education as a foundation for development. He hoped that, with the the improved facilities, the girls and boys students at Chemhondoro would learn better, and that those currently out of school would now attend school. He also praised the community, who had started to build one of the classroom blocks and the ablution block through their own efforts, and who contributed much time and effort to the project.
The Project for Improvement of the Educational Environment at Chemhondoro Secondary School is part of the wider Grant Assistance for Grassroots and Human Security Projects which launched in Zimbabwe in 1989
by dapp | Apr 10, 2018 | Blog, News
Farmers’ clubs Zimbabwe projects are engaging farmers in Masvingo ,Makoni, Mutasa in promoting the cultivation of small grains such as millet and sorghum to boost food security.
Farmers’ clubs Project Leaders agree that small grains such as sorghum, pearl and finger millet are vital for food and nutrition security. They says their drought tolerant nature make them able to thrive better in drier areas.
Farmers also received education on the benefits of growing small grains. They were taught that, sorghum and pearl millet are rich in potassium and calcium which are important for healthy bones and teeth while finger millet is rich in iron which is important for children under five years, pregnant women and the chronically ill patients.
Farmers welcomed the initiative and managed to produce a substantial amount of the small grains.
Following the good harvest Farmers were also educated on storage of the small grains discovering that as compared to maize Finger millet has long storage life and is rarely attacked by insects.
Ministry of Agriculture is on record saying that growing small grains is a proven approach for improving household food security.
by dapp | Apr 10, 2018 | Blog, News
DAPP Total Control of Tuberculosis is empowering every individual to fight TB and HIV through repeated mobilisation, information dissemination, education and basic counselling at their doorstep.
The program uses its unique strategy of mobilising people to know their HIV status, TB screening as well as collecting sputum from the door step to the lab and bringing the results back to the household. This strategy has reached many people who ordinarily would not actively seek out knowledge or treatment of TB.
“When I visit the people at their door step, they are happy to disclose their health challenges and it becomes easier to assist them. This is because sometimes people might take time to decide to visit the clinics when they are not feeling well and in other instances if they are coughing they think of taking home remedies instead of visiting the clinic for TB screening in time, even though they know their HIV status” ,said Joseph the Field Officer.
Giving information, mobilising people for HIV testing, TB screening ,collecting sputum as well as giving feedback of the results is done at door step. Once someone presents with TB referal slips are given to visit the nearest health facility.
This main strategy is effective as compared to other strategies because enough time is taken with an individual to discuss confidential information. The beneficiary can easily decide and get immediate help and is directed to the right service providers by the Field Officer. The Field Officer and the community volunteers provide educative information on TB/HIV to people in the comfort of their homes.
They collect sputum samples and bring results to the doorstep/ In the case where an individual presents with TB the Field Officer offers support through monitoring treament through the Direct Observed Treatment (DOT).
Field Officers go further to form TRIOs for treatment adherence and monitoring.
In order to effectively deliver results and cover more ground the Field Officer join hands with trained community volunteers who go door to door step providig one on one counselling in order to identify health problems and refer to health service providers.
Results from the programme implementation can be quickly and easily tracked through the use of data standardized monitoring and evaluation data collection tools and analysed. Decisions are made quickly and actions are taken to control the TB and HIV.
No one is left behind when using the door to door strategy in the Makoni district and the nation at large.
by dapp | Apr 10, 2018 | Blog, News
The major global health crises of recent decades have, at times, felt insurmountable. The onset of the HIV epidemic in the late 1970s and the 2014 West African Ebola outbreak are prime examples. Yet through concerted and sustained collaborative action, in significant part led by civil society and the affected communities, such crises have over time been addressed, controlled, and increasingly mitigated.
Tuberculosis is not one such crisis. While the number of deaths globally from tuberculosis fell by 22 percent between 2000 and 2015, TB is now responsible for more deaths than either HIV or malaria annually. In 2015, TB was one of the top 10 causes of death worldwide, with an estimated 10.4 million new cases across the globe. That’s roughly one new case for every 721 people on the planet.
What’s more, a rising number of these cases coincide with infection with the better-known global killer, HIV/AIDS, with incidence of co-infection directly linked to elevated mortality rates. In 2015, 1.8 million people died from TB, of which 0.4 million were also HIV positive.
Yet unlike AIDS, TB has to some extent slipped under the radar of global public awareness, receiving a mere fraction of the international efforts dedicated to combatting other major epidemics in the past 30 years. Greater political will, collaboration, and international leadership would all help to tackle TB, as would greater funding and research into new drug-resistant strains of TB and the complexities of co-infection. But, in the absence of a directed focus from the international community, TB prevention has fallen largely into the hands of the medical community, with little investment from either civil society or affected communities that will be critical in preventing the spread of the disease in the future.
These groups were, and remain, at the forefront of promoting sustainable approaches to health issues and pandemics across the world — most notably in relation to halting the seemingly exponential spread of HIV infection. The Federation Humana People to People, of which I am chair, developed and implemented the ground-breaking Total Control of the Epidemic across 12 countries, reaching more than 6.5 million people and acting as a model for HIV prevention efforts across the globe.
A similar approach is desperately needed to tackle the TB crisis. While greater global investment into research and treatment is essential, the factors preventing a greater reduction in global incidents of TB must be addressed at a more localized level. Stigma, mistrust, and false beliefs among affected populations can only be tackled through direct engagement, the development of trust and, crucially, tried and tested approaches to disease prevention in such communities.
The good news is we know how to do this. The success, albeit belatedly, in tackling the HIV epidemic, provides us with a replicable and scalable model. And there are clear indications that implementation of this model can deliver results.
Let’s take Mozambique as an example. Maputo-province and Maputo-city are among the highest HIV/TB burden regions in Mozambique with HIV prevalence in adults around 23 percent and 17 percent, respectively. Using the approach taken to tackle HIV as a model, ADPP Mozambique has been implementing two community-based projects in Maputo province, aiming to protect people living with HIV from TB and avoidable mortality.
The key elements of these programs are field counselors and supervisors, in collaboration with local public health facilities, and engaging with local communities door-to-door to build trust and understanding. The programs utilize local networks and knowledge to target households that are known to be at high risk of TB, screening individuals, and providing them with the appropriate health support mechanisms as required. The programs empower individuals to spread the message, and to act as a conduit for engaging other, often harder-to-reach individuals and communities. Crucially, the program uses a unique IT-based mobile application to track patients in the community and link them to their nearest health-facilities, facilitating follow-ups, monitoring, and wider data-driven community engagement strategies.
And it has shown impressive results. Between 2015-16, the projects in Maputo tested 247 342 people at high risk of HIV, of which 21 348 were identified as sero positive; 97.5 percent of those identified as HIV positive were also screened for TB, leading to 747 people being connected to TB treatment. This approach ensures that people know their status — of both HIV and TB — equipping them with the knowledge and the impetus to do something about it. The highly contagious nature of TB renders prevention an efficient investment — with every person treated for TB, you are directly contributing to preventing the spread of infection to other family and community members. The multiplier effect on investment, paired with the urgency of the epidemic, should be enough to propel this issue to center stage of the public health policy debate.
At the Moscow Ministerial Conference in November, and the U.N. high-level meeting in 2018, we will be advocating for firmer commitments from civil society, governments, and international institutions, and the widespread implementation of an accountability framework in TB prevention. We believe that staunch commitment, together with solid mechanisms for accountability, can put an end to this avoidable yet deadly illness.
Approaches involving meaningful community engagement, based on tried and tested methods and models and working collaboratively with affected communities, must be prioritized, funded, and replicated if we are to break the back of the TB epidemic. At-risk communities deserve an approach that empowers them, consults with them, and strengthens their ability to lead the fight against TB. We cannot afford another lost decade
