Mangwende Orphan Care Trust (MOCT) A Movement for Uplifting Communities

The Mangwende Orphan Care Trust (MOCT) was founded in 2015, Zimbabwe, district of Murehwa, to provide relish, salt, cooking oil additionally to the corn from the government to feed the school children. After the government stopped providing corn and the wells for drinking water dried out, the Trust took on the vision of providing shelter and education for orphans and the most vulnerable members of the community.

Evans Mangwende, co-founder of MOCT, saw agroecological practices, mainly permaculture as the way forward and the vision of a Permaculture Education Farm and Demonstration Centre was born. The Trust has secured 18ha area of land, on which two orphan villages will also be built. The goal of the Mangwende Orphan Care Trust is to provide the rural villages of Zimbabwe with the tools for agro-ecological self sufficiency and village-based social security for the most vulnerable members of the community through a purpose built Education Centre. It would serve as a hub for developing a self-organizing network of ‘Farmer Field Schools’ involving 336 villages of the district, which will ‘train trainers’ in land management training including permaculture and agroforestry.

The Schools will double as traditional ‘Zunde raMambo’ plots, which is the traditional village based social security system, an agricultural site, where the community works voluntarily and the harvest goes to the needy of the village.

The centre benefits individuals, the community and local economy, whilst creating community independence, global participation and sustainability. The work is adapted to the transition in local and bioregional context, but through collaboration and knowledge exchange it will serve the global interest.

MOCT collaborates with other organisations in the region including PORET, Kufunda Village and Soft Foot Alliance to promote regenerative practices and initiate the use of Seeds alternative currency.