BY PATRICIA SIBANDA
THE My Beautiful Home project organisers have partnered with Bulawayo Sebenza Tours and Travel Agent in supporting Matobo villagers’ quest to preserve and showcase local traditions through a painted huts competition.
My Beautiful Home project encourages Matabeleland people to modernise their homes in a traditional way through use of natural pigments.
Bulawayo Sebenza Tours and Travel Agent representative Ferguson Tsvangirai told NewsDay Life & Style that the project had grown to become a tourist attraction because of its unique designs and paintings.
“We are collaborating with My Beautiful Home in their programmes. Women in Matopo are doing an excellent job, decorating their homes, mixing natural resources to produce paint and materials to use for the decoration,” he said.
“Through this, the women are promoting tourism as they are attracting people to come to Matopo to view the place and learn how they can also do it, among other things.”
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Tsvangirai said every Wednesday and Saturdays they drive tourists to Matopo to hear the story of the My Beautiful Home project.
My Beautiful Home project founder Veronica Atala said they were now conducting a random selection and judging process for the My Beautiful Home competition.
“On Saturday, we were ranking the best homes, we did a pre-selection on Wednesday with the ward coordinators in Matopo,” she said.
“We are supposed to come up with 70 finalists.
“We are doing seven wards and the best 10 of each of the seven wards will be going to Amagugu to receive their prizes which consist of ploughs, water tanks, pots and wheelbarrows among other things.”
Atala said the women were being trained in beekeeping and to make eco-stoves that consume less firewood and preserve forests.
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