COEX SOCIAL ENTERPRISE IMPACT
The Habu Community Garden- turning efforts into food
The Habu Community Garden is back on track after a mini hurricane early in the year, producing fresh vegetables for Habu and neighboring villages. The 2 ha garden is is equipped with two boreholes, shade netting, a storage container and irrigation pipes. It is attended by 21 committed members (20F:1M) who reached a number of milestones this year including an official handover from a donor, the SADC Centre for Renewable Energy and Energy Efficiency Programme, and the first consignment of vegetables was grown and sold to Xigera Safari Lodge.
Adding value to our Wildlife Friendly Beef Cash! The first payments to farmers from the sale of ‘Commodity Based Trade compliant beef’ from our novel mobile quarantine were made in January, which nearly doubled the cash value that cattle farmers received relative to their previous choices of selling cattle directly to Botswana Meat Commission (BMC) or local butcheries.
Leather! WEA has been working with the Habu leather maker group to add more value of the local herd by utilizing the hides. Owing to a great initiative by Jim Green Footwear - where Jim Green donates 1 pair of boots for every 10 sold to the Game Rangers Association to support anti-poaching units across the continent, GREAT WORK JIM GREEN!- Habu scouts are now the recipients of boots and Jim Green has agreed to trail a new leather made from Habu leather producers to pioneer a line of wildlife friendly boots.
Building capacity for Social Entrepreneurship A strategic partnership established with Technoserve led to the enrollment of 3 Habu youth in a 10 month youth enterprise development programme designed to help them develop their business ideas and turn them into plans ready to apply for funding to the Youth Development Fund. Two of the 3 youth have been awarded funding to start up their businesses in Habu.
Supporting women in Basketry Women basket weavers who had stopped weaving due to challenges with accessing markets have now startedweaving again and are being supported with access to market for their baskets through Travel for Impact.