As the unemployment rate in South Africa continued to rise, a group of women from Makonde village decided to start a community-based project to create job opportunities for themselves. However, it is very difficult to continue with the project without support from the government or the private sector.

The group of women began making jam, using local wild fruits such as the Monkey Orange Fruit, muringa, offerings from the marula trees, and paw-paws. The project was started in 2009 by 21 women, but today only eight women remain. Most of them left because they worked on a voluntary basis and received no salary or stipend.

When Limpopo Mirror visited their plant in Makonde, next to the Gadabi River, last week students from different TVET colleges in the Vhembe District were doing their internships at the project.

One of the students, Vhuthuhawe Tshivhenda, a student at Thengwe TVET College pursuing a farming management diploma, said they were learning a lot from the project. “As I speak, I can sustain myself by making jam with different wild fruits from the bush. The ladies are also teaching us how to take care of trees around us as they are very important to people and animals,” he said.

When asked what he would like to do for a living after school, he said he would like to be his own boss. “My only plea to the government is to help us with land to create job opportunities for ourselves. All I need is land to farm and also to make jam. I see myself as a very successful farmer in the future,” he said.

Meanwhile, the project's spokesperson, Mrs. Rosina Tshivhenga, said that since the project had started some 15 years ago, only one founding member remained. “I joined the project in 2021. It is hard to work without getting paid. We don't have a sponsor, and all the money we make from this project is invested in buying more stock and working materials. At times, when we make more money, we pay ourselves a stipend to survive,” she said.

She is pleading with the government and the corporate world to help them obtain a car to collect wild fruits from areas as far as Niani and towards the eastern side, near Mozambique. “We spend all the profit on transport to collect wild fruits for the project, which is usually more than 60 km away. If we could get a car, we could produce more products and employ many people,” she said.