A 35-year-old Limpopo woman has dedicated her life to fighting poverty and ensuring food security by imparting farming skills to rural women and children.
Theodorah Mongwe from Nkowankowa Township, outside Tzaneen, has four crop farms in different villages in the area where she trains the locals.
Mongwe also sells some of her produce, employing about fifty women across her farms. These women are part of hundreds who have been trained in small-scale crop production.
As the project manager, Mongwe says she was motivated by the need to empower rural women. Some of her trainees have started their own backyard gardens, while others work at Mongwe’s farms located in various villages.
The Occupational Health and Safety graduate says she took several crop production courses after failing to secure employment in her field of study.
“Most of these women that I work with face a lot of challenges when it comes to putting food on the table, so I realized that I can do something to help them. I go around looking for women who are struggling to sustain their basic needs and equip them with necessary skills that will enable them to produce food for themselves,” she says.
Working at one of Mongwe’s farms has made it possible for Gavaza Mangwa to ensure that her three children get tertiary education.
“As a single mother, it was never easy. I have three children and all of them had an opportunity to go to tertiary at the same time. This project has helped me a lot because some of them are now working,” says Gavaza,.
Mongwe is in the process of compiling a study guide for primary school-going learners to ensure that they too develop farming skills from an early age.
