Jobs for 250 Impoverished Families in Swaziland

A number of older people like Gogo (Grandmother) Mabuza benefit tremendously from Kudvumisa Foundation’s economic development projects. One of the ways is to help people support their families by buying moringa seeds they harvest from the trees at their homestead. As the African lifestyle dictates, when you get old there is nothing much you can do to support your family, because you lack strength to work. So many older people end up relying on government grants that they receive every three months. These grants can barely sustain them for the next three months. They are very small and never enough. Gogo Mabuza, one of the elderly people from Maphiveni community who has moringa trees planted at her homestead, says that even though she does not have strength to do hard work for pay any longer she now finds selling moringa seeds to Kudvumisa as a secondary source income beyond the government grants. It helps her live a better life and be able to meet her family’s basic needs even when the government grant is finished. This small business sustains the provision for her to support herself, her granddaughter and grandson’s lives.

Moringa seeds are produced annually from moringa trees. In the eastern part of Eswatini, there are many moringa trees. People collect the moringa seeds when they mature and become dry and sell the seeds to Kudvumisa. Kudvumisa weighs the seeds and pays the people who bring them per kilogram. What they earn helps change their lives as they are benefiting from earning extra money. Kudvumisa presses the seeds in an oil press to produce the moringa oil. The moringa oil is sold to companies in town who use it to produce natural skin creams.

The people in Maphiveni testify that the income generation project helps meet their basic needs. Currently they are providing for their families. Kudvumisa needs additional support to keep this going on and to move to sustainability.

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