Sinazongwe, Sunday (November 26, 2023)
Centre for Environment Justice (CEJ) says anthrax outbreak in Sinazongwe District has impacted negatively on the already climate stressed communities.
THE Ministry of Livestock and Fisheries has dispatched 6000 dosages of anthrax vaccines to boost the ongoing livestock vaccination where nearly 10 000 livestock such as cattle, goats and sheep will be vaccinated.
At least 249 livestock have died since the outbreak of anthrax with Government announcing that the actual livestock mortality could be more than what has been reported as some people concealed the deaths.
Speaking in Sinazongwe District after a project Monitoring exercise, CEJ Head of Programmes Haggai Nyambe, said most groups empowered by his Organization to venture into alternative livelihoods such as livestock business have been affected by the disease outbreak.
Mr. Nyambe explained that CEJ is implementing an Alternative Livelihoods Support project funded by the Bread for the World (Germany) by giving interest free revolving funds to savings groups known as Village Banks.
He named Mwenzuma A, Mwenzuma B, in Sinazeze as well as Kanyama and Sikalonzo in Maamba as four groups that were empowered with revolving funds.
Mr. Nyambe said four more groups will be given in January next year.
He said CEJ is working towards uplifting the welfare of people in mining communities because of the challenges among others relocations adding that Sinazongwe is struggling with the effects of Climate Change.
“We are also monitoring groups that never received funding from CEJ but are being used as control groups. Some of the groups were trained by CEJ on village banking. We are happy that they have been resilient despite facing challenges among others, anthrax,” he said.
Mr. Nyambe said CEJ will continue with the revolving fund exercise until all the 21 groups in Sinazongwe benefit.
“The groups ventured into goat, cattle, chicken and vegetable businesses and we shall monitor them from time to time so that they can succeed,” he said.
