Book Description

This book documents the history, successes, and failures of Save the Children's farmworker program in Zimbabwe, 1981-98. The report explores workers' past and present living and working conditions on commercial farms and describes how the program promoted a progression from workers with a migrant mentality to the building of functional communities, increasingly able to articulate and address their own problems. Information was gathered from key informants on commercial farms, government officials, development officers, and 426 farmworkers. Chapters cover: (1) an introduction to Save the Children Fund and the farmworker program; (2) the situation of rural people before 1980; (3) conditions for farmworker women and children as farmworkers missed out on national improvements in rural education and services; (4) the first pilot farmworker project, 1981-83; (5) expansion in the 1980s; (6) program impacts in the 1980s on the health of women and children, access to water and sanitation, provision of preschools on farms, housing, nutrition, adult literacy, socioeconomic status, and women's activities; (7) major concerns and lessons learned; (8) a period of uncertainty; (9) organizational issues and changes, program impacts, government partnerships, and community leadership training in the early 1990s; (10) program achievements; and (11) a portrait of the farm village. Appendices present data tables reflecting program progress and list participating farms and program staff. (Contains photographs, a list of acronyms, a glossary, and 80 references.) (SV)