The women established Nkadzi Maboko Federation (NMF) on May 8, 2011 in response to the rampant poverty and unemployment situation that has bedeviled the township for a long time.Speaking with the society's collector, Kushatha Gungwa, she explained that the name of their federation, 'Nkadzi Maboko' is Kalanga meaning 'Mosadi Mabogo' in Setswana (A woman is strong with her hands).Gungwa said women should use her hands to feed their families.
"We were given this idea by our social worker back in 2010. She said she visited Zimbabwe and Zambia and established that women in those countries formed societies to empower themselves and suggested we try it to empower ourselves," she said.Gungwa said that it took them a year to consider forming the organisation and a group of 18 women came together to launch 'Nkadzi Maboko', which now boasts more than 60 members."We started with contributions of P1 everyday. After a year we met with other schemes from other locations in Francistown to benchmark."We divide the money amongst members who then come with receipts to show what they have bought with the money," she said.She said they later decided to contribute P7 every Monday and as time went by, they realised that it was small and decided to form sub-groups within the scheme making contributions that started from P100.
