Nemafhohoni proves that disabled people can live independent lives

Ms Lydia Nemafhohoni, a well-known and award-winning disabled community builder from Pile village in the Mutale district, said she had dedicated her life to working for the upliftment of disabled people. She said that, as part of celebrating the dawn of the New Year, she was prepared to go all out to start more projects for the disabled.

Nemafhohoni is the chairperson of a community farming project called the Faranani Disability People Agricultural Primary Co-operative, based in Pile village, which was established in July 2004. She said that, although they had experienced many challenges along the way, their dedication, honesty, and hard work had kept it going, even today. “The initiative’s main aim is to show the community that people living with a disability can be independent too, without depending solely on social grants from the government.”

Their first project focused on poultry farming, specialising in broiler chickens. Later, in 2010, the Department of Social Development funded them with R289,000, which was used for fencing, electricity, a borehole, building structure, production, auditing, equipment, and labour. Nemafhohoni said that many similar projects by other organisations had been started at the same time they started this project, but that nearly all of them had collapsed because of financial problems.

The shy-looking mother of three added that, after she had divorced in 2010, she had started focusing on the projects on a full-time basis. In 2015, they decided to expand their farming project. They ploughed their yard, where they started planting seasonal vegetables and fruit as well. This led them to enter the People with Disability in Agricultural and Rural Development (PDARD) competition, which they have won several times over the years.

“In 2016, we started our third project. This time, we decided to build a grocery shop, which is still operating today,” she said.

In 2020, they went even further and established a Drop-in-Centre to provide food for children from poor families before and on returning from school, helping them with their homework, and teaching them different sports and cultural activities over the weekends. Nemafhohoni said her resolution for this year is to knock on every available door to find sponsorships to revive the Drop-in-Centre project. “There is a lot of poverty in this area with families that are struggling to put food on the table. Many of these kids only eat through the schools’ feeding programmes during the week, and over the weekends they walk around begging for money to buy themselves something to eat. As disabled people, we are prepared to die for the poorest of the poor in our communities,” she said.

Date:14 January 2024

By: Victor Mukwevho

Victor Mukwevho Ne-vumbani joined the Mirror during it's inception in 1990. He joined the SABC newsroom in 1995, and was known by  listeners as "A u fhedzisela ari". He was a news editor for The Tembisan Newspaper from 2007 to 2015. He rejoined the Limpopo Mirror newspaper in June 2022 as a freelance journalist.

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