A group of Plumtree residents have come together to form a consortium which will see them venturing into various projects to empower themselves and develop their area.
Initially, the group was a 20-member team before others dropped out leaving only eight members.
They managed to raise over R100 000 and bought 108 goats mostly two breeds, the red Kalahari and the cross Boer from Gwanda.
The consortium held an event on Sunday where the beneficiaries from the UK, London, South Africa, and Bulawayo were receiving their goats.
One of the members, Ceekay Ncube who has been in goat farming for a while said this is the beginning of many other businesses that the team wants to engage in.
“Today is a special day for us because we are going to share these goats depending on the contributions we made. After putting in some money for a couple of months, we came up with a minimum of R10 000 each, others doubled that amount and we boat goats from Gwanda as a foundation of our project because this is just stage one, we are going further, we are actually planning to receive the second load in December,” said Ncube.
He said the team wants to seriously go into goat farming due to its vast benefits which amongst them include meat, milk and skin.
Ncube said they will keep the goats in an organic manner without relying a lot on supplements.
“After sharing, all the members are going to take their portion and they are going to run them differently but we remain under the same umbrella since I have more knowledge, I will be moving around monitoring the project whether they are keeping the goats in the right manner and I will be giving technical advice to them but the most important thing is to ensure that we expand from this,” he said.
“As we go further once everybody now knows how to keep goats, we are then going to go for the pure Kalahari and pure Boer so that we continuously upgrade our breads.”
Ncube said the goats had to undergo vaccination as part of the efforts to prevent any diseases such as pulpy kidneys and for the goats to adapt to the conditions in Plumtree.
In addition, another team member Sikhumbuzo Mlalazi said the goat business will open opportunities for other people in the community.
“Most of us left Zimbabwe thinking that we will get money out there but we have realized that if we do this business in our community it will open opportunities for other people and benefit. No one will come from another area to do things for us but we have to do it on our own. Unity is important, business like this makes people prosper,” said Mlalazi.
Another member, Methembe Ndlovu encouraged other women and young people to venture into such projects.
“For the first time, being a part of this business has given me an opportunity as a woman to also occupy the space that has predominantly been male-dominated, I would like to encourage young women of my age to also step up and occupy the spaces that are male-dominated,” she said.
Bulilima West MP, Dingumuzi Phuthi who had also attended the event said he is thrilled about the team’s concept.
“This is a very viable project and replicated across, it means a lot, this sustains our people, it injects the culture of understanding business from a different viewpoint, gone are the days where our people would all crowd and do retail business, this diversion is something that I embrace so much and celebrate because it tells us that our people now understand what it takes to get somewhere, very smart and strongly sustainable so,” said Phuthi.
