Why Zimbabwe’s schools have taken to selling chickens

The job of a head teacher involves hiring teachers, disciplining pupils and placating parents. It does not normally include selling chickens. But that was one of several side-hustles run by Evermore Chakwizira, who until last year was the head of Chinyika High School in Goromonzi, 40km (25 miles) east of Harare, Zimbabwe’s capital. Since 2019 his school has sold hundreds of chicks a week at the local market. During the covid-19 pandemic, when children were at home, fluffy poults took up residence in the classrooms.The school has other businesses, too. It used the money earned from selling chicks to buy sewing machines to make face-masks and uniforms for schools across the province. Its latest schemes are to manufacture bricks and breed tilapia fish.