The young people planting resilience: growing a new future

The Mbire Garden: growing resilience (and food)

Located in Mahuwe, the Mbire Garden isn't just any garden. It is a response to both the urgent needs of the local community and a desire to demonstrate how practical solutions to climate change and food insecurity can work.

A local pastor, who is part of Tearfund’s Transforming Communities training, came up with the idea when working alongside the Tearfund-supported Zimbabwe Environmental Care Network (ZECN) and the Zimbabwe Church and Community Transformation Network (ZCCTN).

With help from Tearfund training on movement building, advocacy and media engagement, and with support from Tearfund’s Zimbabwe office to help design activities with the greatest impact, the team chose an organic approach, focusing on environmentally friendly practices to improve the soil and provide people with nutritious food. And they were also determined to create a model that was sustainable and cost-effective, using what was already available to them.

They incorporated locally available resources – like unused land and empty plastic bags for construction – and they leveraged the valuable time and skills of community members who contributed their labour.

They combined organic techniques like composting and cow-dung tea with traditional farming practices and local knowledge. The goal was a contextually relevant and sustainable model.

The Mbire Garden now serves multiple purposes:

• It's a vital education and demonstration site. After years of talking about smart agriculture and climate resilience, this is where theories become visible, touchable projects.
• It's a strategic way to engage the government. By creating this positive, visible project, government departments began engaging, opening safer avenues for further work.
• Crucially, it directly builds climate resilience. Techniques like mulching, composting and crop rotation help the soil retain precious moisture and reduce erosion in this dry, windy environment. They are even practicing plasticulture as a way to adapt to water challenges.

The impact of this project has been remarkable. By building a critical relationship with a local partner, they equipped the 0.8 hectare organic garden with a solar-powered borehole and drip irrigation system – a vital source of water in a water-scarce region.

This now provides water not just for the garden, but for nearby community members, local schools and even government departments like the police, army and health ministry. Over 660 community members and 700 students directly benefit from access to clean water.

Agents of change: young people actively shaping the future

The Mbire Garden project is now a hub for training on conservation agriculture, disaster risk reduction and resource mobilisation. And here's where the future is being actively shaped: more than 245 young people have been trained through this initiative.

These young people are not just learning; they are taking action, with some already starting their own gardening projects. They are becoming agents of change and resilience in their own right.

Stories like this, and also like this one about the thin plastics ban in Malawi, highlight the power of investing in and empowering young people – they are the key to growing resilience and change in the face of our shared environmental future.

Whether by tackling national environmental legislation through strategic advocacy and legal battles, or building climate resilience and food security at the community level through practical, collaborative initiatives, the journey is often challenging but can lead to transformative change.