In the rural plains of Matabeleland North, a 15-year-old girl is attending school from an informal “bush boarding” facility because her parents, both living with untreated mental health conditions, are unable to support her.
Local poet and community advocate Obert Dube, who highlighted her case, says her situation reflects a wider crisis unfolding in Zimbabwe’s poorest province.
Matabeleland North has been identified as the country’s most economically vulnerable province, with average monthly household incomes estimated at just US$66. Community leaders say the combination of poverty and limited access to psychiatric care is pushing already fragile families deeper into hardship.
“Many people in rural areas are living with mental illness without psychiatric support,” said Councillor Given Moyo of Kachechete in Hwange District. “We see families collapsing because the breadwinner is no longer stable. The burden falls on children who should be in a classroom, not acting as primary caregivers. Without specialised clinics, these families are left to rot in poverty.”
According to the 2024 Zimbabwe Livelihoods Assessment Committee (ZimLAC) report, 10.5% of households in the province have at least one member with a confirmed mental illness. Community leaders say the social consequences extend far beyond that figure.
In one district, Mr Dube said he encountered a nine-year-old girl who dropped out of school after her mother, who has a mental health condition, failed to raise the US$20 school fees.
Across the province, elderly people are increasingly heading households. In Binga’s Kamativi area, 70-year-old Lenziwe Mwembe cares for two grandchildren and a son with chronic mental instability.
“I am old and tired,” she said. “The children have no shoes, and with maize meal prices reaching US$1 per kilogramme in some areas, I must choose between buying food and paying for their school books.”
Provincial data show that 30.1% of households in Matabeleland North are headed by elderly people, the highest rate in Zimbabwe.
In Tsholotsho, Maria Sibanda looks after her mentally ill sister while trying to provide for the family through casual labour.
“When the mind is sick, the stomach follows,” she said. “If I stay home to stop my sister from wandering into the bush, we earn nothing.”
The ZimLAC report also found that 13.1% of children in the province are out of school, largely because of financial constraints.
Village health workers, who provide primary healthcare support in many remote communities, say they are not equipped to deal with psychiatric emergencies.
Hlanganani village health worker Bongani Ndebele said that although 83% of communities in the province have access to such workers, they lack specialist training.
“We can offer basic health advice, but we are not trained for psychiatric crises,” he said. “We see children failing to grow properly because grandparents cannot manage the Pfumvudza plots that should be feeding them.”
Community leaders are now calling for decentralised mental health services and targeted support for vulnerable families, including school fee waivers for children affected by parental illness.
“Without a dedicated effort to provide psychiatric care and educational support, we fear a generation of children in Matabeleland North will be lost to the shadows of their parents’ illness,” Mr Ndebele said.
“We would be grateful if we could have psychiatric hospitals in our districts, so that parents can receive proper treatment and their children can receive counselling.”