BY DELISA THWALA
MBABANE- In the year 2022 only, the Deputy Prime Minister’s Office (DPMO) has identified and assisted over 550 child headed households.
This was revealed in the DPMO’s quarterly report. It was in this report that the office reported that, the Kingdom of Eswatini has about 1 834 child-headed households (CHH) according to the 2017 population census.
A child-headed family or child-headed household is a family in which a minor (child or adolescent) has become the head of the household. They are most common in developing countries and areas of war, where the children’s parents have been killed by conflict or disease. In some cases, relatives of the children adopt them after the parents die.
The DPMO assisted the child headed households through a farming programme that was initiated to assist the most vulnerable child headed households in the country who are beneficiaries of similar programmes from other stakeholders.
According to the report a selection criterion is used to identify these households.
“In preparation for the planting season, the following has been done and therefore the identification of 550 child headed households for this farming season (2022/23) in the four regions have been done,” read the report.
When elaborating further, DPMO’S Communication Officer Mihla Khumalo said the farming project was made possible by the memorandum of understanding (MoU) which was signed on July 25, 2022.
“This MoU was between the DPMO World Vision Eswatini (WVE) and Esicojeni Foundation. The objective of the MoU was to pool funds together to enhance livelihood of child headed households through producing their own food,” said Khumalo.
In addition to that Khumalo said as opposed to depending on humanitarian assistance, as such restore their dignity and self-esteem. The funding of the programme was as follows: E2, 000,000 was pledged by WVE (E1, 000,000) and Esicojeni (E1, 000,000) to support to 250 households in the Shiselweni and Lubombo regions and E2, 200,000 from Government will support 300 households in the Manzini and Hhohho regions.
