Marondera – Fifteen thousand vulnerable residents of Marondera urban are receiving financial assistance from Goal Zimbabwe to cushion them against the prevailing economic hardships, an official has said.

The organisation is one of the country’s largest aid agencies, and has disbursed almost US$1 million since the beginning of the year.

In Marondera, of 15 000 beneficiaries, 10 746 are women, who are often more at risk, and the remainder are men.

Goal Zimbabwe’s country director, Gabriella Prandini told New Ziana the aid agency had recently increased its financial assistance to recipients in view of the increasing hardships.

It gave each beneficiary US$9 per month, but has now been increased to US$12 from last month.

“So far, a total of US$810 000 has been disbursed to support the 15 000 community members that we are supporting in Marondera,” said Prandini.

She said target groups in Marondera urban are vulnerable households in Wards 1 to 8, mainly child and female headed families, orphans, the elderly, pregnant and lactating women, the sick and disabled.

Prandini said Goal Zimbabwe worked in partnership with the Department of Social Welfare to ensure only deserving people benefitted.

She said the financial assistance had immensely benefitted the recipients as most had no independent source of livelihood.

“Through the support of our donor UKAid and our partner WFP, we have managed to assist communities to put food on the table for their families. In some instances, households were able to start livelihood projects at community level including poultry, buying and selling foodstuffs, selling at flea markets as a result of the funds received from the project,” she said.

“Prior to the lockdown some households used the funds to pay school fees.
Sadly, the need is far greater than we are able to meet. However Goal Zimbabwe will continue to highlight the need for support and we hope to be able to expand and/or extend this intervention.”

However, the programme is set to end in October next year.
New Ziana