Gweru (The Times-New Ziana) The Gweru Residents Forum (GRF) has embarked on income generating projects to assist less privileged residents in clearing their debts with the city council.

Running with the theme “Strengthening Economic Capacities and the Civic Voice of Gweru Women through Poultry Production”, there are five groups currently involved in the project.

GRF lobby and advocacy officer Pretty Chabuda said they applied for assistance from the United States Aid Agency to assist residents pay their water bills.

“As an organization, we conducted a research in 2017 on why many residents are not being able to pay their water bills and we discovered that due to poverty some residents do not have source of income to pay their rates,” she said.

“Out of 500 organizations, we were part of the top 16 organizations which were to receive funding from US Aid and we decided to do a poultry project, for we know it brings profit after every six weeks.”

Chabuda said currently five groups with 25 members (from Mkoba 7, 6, 1, 2 and 10) and registered with the (GRF) were benefiting from poultry projects.

“The residents who are benefiting from this poultry project are members of GRF only and they are from Mkoba 2, 1, 6, 7, and 10,” she said.

“So far, we have five groups of five members who got the feed, chicks and everything they could use for the project which makes them 25 members of GRF,” she added.

New Ziana