Women power in Willowmore

By Destine Nde

After a long history of patriarchy, the principle of gender equality has been adopted in all but the most conservative societies around the world – and South Africa is no exception.

It starts in the constitution, which prohibits discrimination on the grounds of gender, sex, pregnancy marital status and age, among others, and provides for laws and other measures to advance people or groups disadvantaged by discrimination – specifically, the empowerment of youths and women. In this frame, various laws aimed at ensuring gender equality and empowering women have been adopted.

But handsome is as handsome does, so what’s being done in practice to advance and empower women and youths? The more so in my town of Willowmore in the Klein Karoo?

My wife has a passion for cooking. In fact, she’s a certified chef, and has always wanted to own and manage a restaurant. So what are the chances of her being assisted to do so?

With this question in mind, I visited Mandilake Mbatsha, a friend of mine at the Department of Social Development offices in Willowmore. After our usual greetings, I asked him whether the department supported business proposals by youths and women, and what the procedures were for doing so.

Mandilake Mbatsha in his office in Willowmore. All images: the author. 

‘It’s quite simple,’ he said. ‘If people are younger than 35, they qualify for funding, and if they are female, they are favoured. We have some good empowerment programmes. If the person you are soliciting for is a young women, then she would be a priority.

‘All she would need to do is to register her business as a cooperative, with three to five members. After this we will check for three more things: passion, skill, and some experience.

We ask applicants to provide us with three months of statements for their business accounts, which helps us to establish whether they have a clear goal as well as the drive needed to run a successful business. Some people just talk about their dreams, ideas and plans and never get down to action.’

‘Are there any such cooperatives in Willowmore you’ve empowered?’

‘Yes, quite a few. But sadly, they seldom end well.’ The main reasons for failure, he explained, were mismanagement, dishonesty, and conflicts of interest.

This was sobering. But he did confirm that the DSD had funded at least one successful venture – the Simunye Women’s Cooperative, which operates a poultry farm just outside the town.

Charmaine Paulse and Leilani Visser-Frasenburg outside a poultry house.

So I paid them a visit, to see and hear for myself. I met and chatted with the cooperative’s chair, Leilani Visser-Frasenburg. I gathered that the coop consists of seven members — all women, of whom one is disabled. It was founded in June 2022 and began to operate in September 2023.

The have mainly been funded by the DSD, which has equipped them with infrared lights as well as generators, to help alleviate the problems caused by loadshedding. But they also receive supplementary support from the Department of Agriculture, which recently gave them 1000 chicks plus feed.

The municipality provides them with essential cleaning equipment and material. Added to this, they receive advice, training, and guidance from both these government departments as well as poultry experts from Fullerton. Their chickens are sold to a soup kitchen in Rietbron as well as people catering for local funerals and other functions.

I asked: ‘Please tell me more about your internal operations, and how long it takes for a batch of chickens to be ready for the market?’

‘We keep about a thousand chickens at a time. We have three stages, with three different feeds, one for each stage. The first is the Starter, which is fed to the chicks. This phase usually lasts about 19 days. The second is the Grower, which covers the next tho weeks. And the last is the Finisher, used during the sixth week. We work in pairs and in shifts.’

‘What challenges have you faced?’

‘In the beginning, we were quite ignorant; we lacked basic knowledge and skills. Then there was the problem of electricity; we struggled a lot to maintain warm temperatures inside. But we’ve learnt, and we’ve kept going.

‘We have a good team. There are no incidents of misbehaviour. We’ve just bought new drinkers and feeders. When we are able to, we’re going to buy a fresh batch of chicks every second week. We have a borehole, but the water hasn’t been tested yet, so we still depend on rain and municipal water. But the future’s bright’, she said cheerfully.

Charmaine Paulse, another member of the cooperative, nodded her head affirmatively. ‘This present batch is six weeks old, and we will start selling tomorrow.’

Back with Mandi, I asked him just why women were being favoured in this way. ‘I suppose it’s a form of affirmative action,’ he said – ‘some kind of redress for the subjugation which women have suffered under before.’ We agreed that the members of the Simunye Women’s Cooperative, at least, had seized this opportunity with both hands.

FEATURED IMAGE: Leilani Visser-Frasenburg with chickens.