A borehole drilling company, Delcor Drilling, has taken an initiative to assist 200 vulnerable Matabeleland families with food aid.
The company is targeting mainly the old, disabled and child headed families at a time when the country is reeling from the effects of the Covid-19.
The World Food Programme (WFP) estimates that about eight million people in Zimbabwe are in dire need of food aid, noting that the pandemic is worsening an already dire situation in the Southern African nation.
Families benefitting from the Delcor programme are drawn from Tsholotsho, Plumtree, Ngozi Mine, Bulawayo’s Nkulumane suburb, Ntabazinduna and other areas which were randomly selected.
The company also partners the second runner up, Miss Pan African Queen-Zimbabwe, Patience Nomazulu Gumbo.
The food hampers comprise mealie-meal, cooking oil, soap, sugar, salt and other major necessities.
Speaking to CITE, Delcor manager, Violet Masuku, said the ongoing programme was meant to assist the vulnerable in communities.
“We started this two years ago,” said Masuku.
“We are giving because it’s an assignment from God that we should give to the needy; we should give the elderly. In our giving we are showing love because as we are giving you hear someone saying I prayed to God today and I asked for food and all of a sudden we appear and give that person. To us it’s just an assignment from God, we have to remember the needy, not that we have but from the little that we have, we have to share.”
Gumbo on the other hand said she believed as a public figure she could inspire others to also help the needy.
“As a public figure I can inspire other people to help wherever they can and as someone who was sponsored by Delcor I understand the power of giving back and as such I have initiated programmes of my own to uplift communities,” she said.
“This programme assists the elderly who have no one supporting them, child headed families, the disabled and people in general who are in serious need of food and with no way of getting it.”
She said community leaders were the ones who help in identifying beneficiaries in their different communities.
“Community leaders and other community members help in identifying such families. The targeted areas are those with the greatest need of assistance,” she said.
