By Tanatsiwa Dambuza
Zimbabwe’s care economy is being restructured in living rooms and kitchen courtyards. Grandmothers and older relatives form the frontline of the social safety net for thousands of children, yet many struggle to provide basic needs such as school fees, food, and healthcare. The Muzukuru Project, an intergenerational initiative run by Hibiscus Dotage Foundation and led by its founder Panashe Pemhiwa, was designed to bridge this gap after the Foundation, which focuses on improving older people’s livelihoods, recognised that supporting elders is most effective when extending assistance to the children under their custodianship to ease the caregiving burden. The project supports young custodians who care for elders and the elders who depend on them, integrating education support, food assistance, psychosocial mentoring, and volunteer training, and treating all tenets of care as a single household system rather than isolated problems.
In doing so, it exposes an absence of government-mandated hospice and coordinated elder care services that prevent caregiving burdens from cascading into child or youth vulnerability. This article combines field testimonies and national data in order to illustrate the significance of intergenerational philanthropy initiatives like the Muzukuru Project in addressing policy gaps.
Who are the Elderly in Zimbabwe
Section 82 of the Zimbabwean Constitution refers to older persons as those who are above 70 years (Government of Zimbabwe, 2018). The Older Persons Act defines an older person as a citizen aged 65 years and above (Government of Zimbabwe, 2012). The regional and the United Nations commonly adopt 60 years as the old age threshold (Makore and Al Maiyah, 2021). Dictionaries frame old age as a socially or conventionally determined life stage rather than a precise chronological cutoff. While these varying definitions do not always block service access, they complicate programme eligibility and advocacy, especially for social transfers, pensions, and health entitlements. The lack of harmony in age thresholds, coupled with unclear cross-instrument eligibility rules, encourages administrative confusion and weakens the ability of older persons to claim their rights.
The National Picture
Kinship care is prevalent globally, as research by Powell et al (2006) reports that over 94% of orphans live in kinship care, while Delap and Mann report that around a quarter of all children are in kinship arrangements. In Zimbabwe, kinship care dominates the alternative care landscape as evidence suggests that the majority of orphaned and vulnerable children (OVC) are cared for within extended families, mostly by grandmothers. Farm Orphan Support Trust reports that about 60% of OVC are in grandparent-headed households, mostly looked after by elderly women. World Without Orphans (2023) notes that more than 26.6% of children under 18 in Zimbabwe are not living with either parent and that institutional placements are a very small share of alternative care. The orphan count in Zimbabwe rose from about 150,000 in 1990 to about 570,000 in 1997 (Matshalaga, 2004; Zimbabwe Department of Social Welfare, 1997), and now they are estimated to be between 1.3 million and 1.8 million.
Older carers face concentrated health mobility and income vulnerabilities, as the Zimbabwe National Healthy Ageing Strategic Plan posits that 82% of older people who live in rural areas face disability, non-communicable diseases, limited access to medicines, as well as limited transport to health facilities (Government of Zimbabwe, 2017). Moreover, informal sector livelihoods and weak pension coverage leave many elders without steady incomes. Adults who are 65 years and above comprise about 4% of Zimbabwe’s population, with the majority of them having worked in the informal sector and thus, lacking pensions. The Older Persons Act of 2012 provides a legislative foundation, but it has not been fully operationalised with adequate services or budget, which leaves a policy gap between legal intent and on-the-ground support (Government of Zimbabwe, 2012; Makore and Al Maiyah, 2021).
A critical structural barrier is the absence of fully operational home-based hospice and elder-care services. Policies such as the National Orphan Care Policy (NOCP) prioritise family-based care, but they are not sufficient substitutes for a concrete national hospice strategy that treats chronic and palliative needs (Government of Zimbabwe, 1999, cited in Muchacha et al., 2016). While the Muzukuru Project’s caregiver training and transport stipends help mitigate clinical gaps, they cannot replace formalised hospice teams trained in palliative and home-based care.
Structural Pressures, Demographic and Migration Trends
These structural pressures converge with demographic and migration trends, as large emigration flows of working-age adults reduce the extended family’s capacity to absorb care burdens and instead push grandchildren, nieces, and nephews into custodial roles. Households cope by cutting daily meals to plain maize porridge, sharing clothing and blankets, and taking on piecework- measures that relieve immediate hunger but erode the learning time and health of both children and elders (Matshalanga 2004). Due to these challenges, child labour practices have intensified for survival. Migration-induced demographic change, coupled with weak social protection, places urgent pressure on programmes like Muzukuru to bridge short-term solutions, while simultaneously pursuing the long-term advocacy required for systemic reform.
How the Muzukuru Project Began
The Muzukuru Project emerged from Hibiscus Dotage Foundation’s long-standing work of supporting older persons. As the founder, Panashe Pemhiwa explains, the initiative started when community visits revealed that many elderly people were raising children, including orphans, abandoned children, or those with disabilities. “We realised that to support the elderly sustainably, we must also empower the children under their care,” she says. The organisation created an Interwoven Lives department to address both sides of the generational bond, and from it, Muzukuru was launched as a strategic programme to focus on education, nutrition, and psychosocial support for children raised by elders.
Pemhiwa frames the Muzukuru Project as humanitarian and developmental in that it “…ensures that the love, wisdom and legacy of the elderly translates into opportunity and hope for the next generation.” The programme recognises that the welfare of elders and children is symbiotic.
A Day in The Life: Young Custodians at The Centre
A typical day for a young custodian, as described by project staff and beneficiaries, captures the intensity of intergenerational responsibility. Days begin early in the morning with water collection and meal preparation, then school follows, but with interruptions for clinic visits, caregiving tasks, or odd jobs such as selling vegetables, running errands, or doing piecework to supplement household income. Despite these burdens, custodians often display maturity and purpose that belie their years, which makes it especially important that the Muzukuru Project offers mentorship and psychosocial support to preserve a sense of childhood and learning time. This reflects a national pattern: custodians frequently shoulder tasks that harm school attendance and performance. The project’s responses through nutritional support, school-term fee alignment, and mentorship are therefore essential for protecting schooling and cognitive development to reduce caretaker strain.
How the Muzukuru Project Works on The Ground
Muzukuru operates through three integrated pillars: immediate household relief, education continuity, and volunteer capacity-building. The first, immediate household relief, includes monthly food packs, hygiene items, and small transport stipends for clinic visits. These interventions counter documented coping practices such as reduced meals and blanket-sharing. Secondly, education continuity includes term-aligned payments for school fees, uniforms, stationery, and examination fees in order to prevent dropouts during critical transitions. And thirdly, volunteer capacity-building that involves training for community volunteers and village health workers on basic caregiving, safe lifting techniques, medication scheduling, and psychosocial first aid.
For the Dotage Dream Fund, fundraising combines both local ownership and scaled giving. The fund employs a community-backed “Six Matrix Guardian System,” with small pooled contributions that can fund a child’s term. Pemhiwa explains, “Six young people giving five dollars each per term can support one child’s education.” Moreover, in-kind donations like uniforms, books, and food complement cash contributions. This model shifts giving from episodic charity to shared social responsibility and includes transparency and measurable impact.
Household Impact: Testimonial Evidence and Measurable Outcomes
Gogo Silenge, one of the Muzukuru project beneficiaries from Chizhanje village, testified that the programme transformed her grandchild’s school life. Muzukuru paid the child’s school fees and provided daily meals, and the child’s attendance and academic performance improved. “Thank you very much for the school fees… Kubva zvamakataura naye kana musikanzwa waita mushoma [since you started talking with him, his menaces have been reduced]. Kana kuchikoro zvave kuita [and has even improved academically],” she expressed deep gratitude.
Muzukuru Project tracks proximate indicators like school attendance and retention, elder clinic appointment adherence, volunteer retention, and reductions in child absenteeism due to caregiving. The programme pairs quantitative tracking with qualitative measures such as custodian stress and elder wellbeing. Evidence shows that small, consistent inputs like term-fee payments, monthly food packs, and transport stipends for both pupils and their elderly guardians produce layered outcomes such as preserved schooling, fewer emergency medical episodes for elders, and improved psychosocial resilience.
Operational Challenges: Funding, Inflation, and The Hospice Gap
Project implementation faces persistent challenges such as price volatility and inflation that erode pledged funds, making multi-term commitments harder to sustain. Moreover, high transport costs for students commuting to school, and for elders travelling to regular clinic appointments, together with distribution expenses, further strain resources for remote households.
Identifying eligible households and custodians is hampered by the absence of formal referral registers, so the project must rely heavily on schools, village health workers, and faith-based networks to locate and refer elders and child custodians in need. At the same time, stigma and privacy concerns mean some households are reluctant to disclose their circumstances or seek help, reducing the visibility of the most vulnerable. Together, these factors widen the hospice gap and make consistent, equitable service delivery far more difficult.
The Muzukuru Project reframes care as an intergenerational enterprise by supporting young custodians and protecting elders, by preserving their well-being through safeguarding children’s schooling and psychosocial development. Modest, predictable investments rooted in social solidarity and careful coordination can prevent the spill of shocks that lock households into chronic vulnerability. For local resilience to become system-wide, philanthropy must be paired with policy action such as the full implementation of the Older Persons Act, funded healthy ageing strategies, and community hospice pilots integrated into primary health services. When communities invest in one another, they preserve dignity, sustain education, and create a future where care connects many generations.