As the country’s economy continues on its downturn, multitudes of unemployed people have resorted to the business of molding bricks for survival. This skyrocketing levels of unemployment have led many Zimbabweans to find any legally possible way of surviving. Brick molding appears to be an occupation that anyone who can use sand, cement, water and a shovel appear to be taking up.
Timothy Mutenure , a 27 year old from Budiriro, is just one of many people who bear the hardships of the weather conditions just to feed `their family from the molding bricks.“I have never been formally employed, all my efforts to get employment were fruitless and I had to resort to brick molding for survival. I decided to venture in the brick molding business and as it stands its paying.
“When business is good, mostly during the end of the month, we pocket close to $5000, ” Mutenure says.
Molding bricks has become the way of life for many people including university graduates in a country where the economy continues to shrink. Handmade bricks cost $500 for a thousand. According to brick makers who spoke to The Zimbabwe Sentinel , these prices vacillate, often declining in the course of the month. The prices of the bricks are also influenced by the demand and increase of housing cooperatives.“During the course of the month business is very low but it upsurges towards month end. With the increasing number of housing cooperatives our monthly sells also goes up,” said John Chitima who owns a brick molding business in Damofalls Park, Ruwa. Despite their appearances homemade bricks are popular because of their long lifespan, and negotiable prices and this has attracted many clients.
There are however challenges that are associated with this informal trade and occupation.
“We face many challenges some of which include conflicts with Environmental Management Agency (EMA). It forbids us to collect river sand so we have to fetch it by night.
“We also have challenges with Zinara (Zimbabwe National Road Authority). As you can see our cars do not have registration so we are always playing a cats and dog game with Zinara officers,” said Mutenure
