*Not the real names. Names are withheld due to ethical considerations.

Growing up, 32-year-old Mable Chikamu aspired to be a driver or mechanic; however, the death of her parents took a significant toll on her future career. Shaken by her loss, she has been driven to take hold of her life choices throughout her life. To no surprise, Mable was nominated to lead a group of nine pregnant women in a village under Chief Marange.

Married with five children of her own, the youngest aged two years, Mable felt the urge to ensure her children’s dietary needs by providing diverse and nutritious food. As a mother, this goal moved her to join a Care Group. In Care Groups, facilitators refer to dietary diversity as the four-star diet, meaning a balanced diet from four food groups: starches, animal-sourced protein, plant-sourced protein, and fruits and vegetables. She has been walking the talk since her first day of training and has noticed a healthy change in her children.

Through the Care Group, Mable mastered the art of preparing a healthy diet using locally available foods. In the past, she prepared plain or sour porridge for her family in the morning. This has since changed. After the practical cooking demonstration from Takunda’s USAID-funded program, she extended the four-star diet to her husband’s brother. He has a chronic illness severely affecting his health and, at the time, had lost hope in life.

“When my brother-in-law came to visit, I started applying the lessons I learned from the Takunda facilitators on combining different foods for nutritional value. I even made porridge with pumpkin leaves for him, and he said he liked it”,

she says, highlighting how her patient appreciates some of the recipes.

For breakfast, she prepares tea with pumpkin or squash (mapudzi). For lunch and supper, she would alternate the relish between the cheap and locally available crickets, mopane worms, fish, beans, cowpeas, and pumpkin leaves, as he was selective about the food he ate. She went the extra mile to start rearing chickens, Guineafowls, and turkeys to provide to complement the locally available animal protein food group. She has grown beans and cowpeas, which she is confident will take her through to the next season in a bid to protect her family from malnutrition.

In addition, she is producing cash crops like sugarcane to increase her access to nutritious diets and pay for school fees. Her husband also testifies how the four-star recipes have helped his brother recover,

“Everything has changed from him struggling to wake up and eat, to cooking his meals — something he loves doing.”

Her husband also enjoys the creative recipes, which he said are now part of the family meals, and hopes to complement this by joining the Men’s Forum, where health issues are discussed.

Reaping her membership benefits, Mable encourages all pregnant and lactating women to join Care Groups. Through Tatapudza* Care Group, lactating women promote good infant and young child feeding practices. This is just one of many interventions Takunda delivers that Mable is participating in. She’s also joined a Farmer Field Business School, resilience designs, and is encouraging other Care Group members to participate in other interventions to sustain their group. Their village is subject to erratic rainfall patterns and high temperatures leading to chronic food shortages.

*Not the real names. Names are withheld due to ethical considerations.