Leadership and Partners

Soul is one of the most respected and well recognized leaders in the community. He seats on the chief’s council and is popular for his conflict mediation skills in the community. Soul is a very exceptional CA farmer. With SCORE, soul organizes farmer to farmer meetings, lead on farm learning workshops and demonstrations and directly report SCORE’s work to the chief and the chief’s council. He serves in the SCORE management committee as a treasurer.

Ellen Manjeru is the Agriculture Extension Officer at the Ministry of Agriculture who collaborates with SCORE on providing conservation agriculture technical support to farmers in 5 villages. Ellen is a devoted agronomist with over 10 years experience working as an agriculture extension officer. With SCORE, her roles include training farmers in conservation agriculture, providing technical expertise on integrating livestock in conservation agriculture, and mobilizing farmers to SCORE farmer field schools. Ellen also advises the SCORE management committee on sustainable farming practices. She also is a member of the SCORE committee that is working on the standardization of conservation agriculture extension messages between the district agriculture office and SCORE.

Blessing Mureverwi advises Score Against Poverty in the areas of nutrition assessment and surveillance, integration of nutrition and food security interventions, management of acute malnutrition, targeted food assistance, as well as maternal, infant and young child nutrition (MIYCN). Blessing has over 12 years of experience working as a nutritionist. He has worked for the government of Zimbabwe’s Ministry of Health and Child Welfare as well as for international non-governmental organizations and United Nations agencies (UNICEF, WFP, UNHCR) in Southern Africa (Zimbabwe, Malawi, Mozambique), East Africa (Ethiopia, Kenya), West Africa (Burkina Faso, Liberia) as well as Asia (India, Bangladesh) in various short-term consultancy as well as full-time assignments.

A veteran agronomist in her own right, Alice Chauke supports SCORE with farmer training and follow up in 4 villages. Alice Chauke worked as a teacher for 5 years before joining the ministry of agriculture as an extension officer for 10 years. Alice is passionate about helping farmers adopt sustainable farming practices and also assisting them to integrate legumes in cereal production. Alice sits on the SCORE management committee as a technical adviser on agriculture extension systems and cereal legume integration. Her previous experience as a teacher and her extensive experience in adult education make Alice one of the valuable farmer trainers and advisers for Score Against Poverty.

Albert is an advanced-level computer teacher at Mwenezi Government Secondary School. With SCORE he serves as the secretary of the SCORE management committee. Albert is the field focal person for the SCORE mobile SMS texting platform. Because of his strong IT skills and his interest in finding IT solutions that can provide a cheaper and convenient means of implementation, monitoring and evaluation of SCORE projects. He is also in charge of making sure that communication with partners is smooth and efficient. Albert spends his free time in the field following up with the farmers and encouraging them to improve their agriculture practices. Albert has been volunteering with SCORE since its inception.

Vurayayi Pugeni was born in Mwenezi District of Masvingo province, Zimbabwe. As he grew up in Mwenezi district, Pugeni experienced and witnessed hunger first hand. He is passionate about finding sustainable ways to end global hunger. Two key pieces to doing this he feels, will involve gender equity, and basic technology related to communication & renewable energy.

The Table is a non-denominational community whose focus is exploring what we believe. That quite naturally leads us into considering the beliefs and cultures of others, and to an interest in caring partnerships both with individuals and groups. SCORE has felt like a great fit from the beginning – it’s small, organic, deeply considered, hopeful, and somewhat experimental. It gives the community of The Table real joy to play whatever part we can in this initiative. We hope to someday meet some of the people with whom we feel this sort of kinship.

At St. Mary’s Road United Church, we are committed to welcome radically, worship totally, hope stubbornly, love wastefully, and live intentionally. As part of that philosophy, we are happy to partner with SCORE as they lead their communities to more wholesome productive lives, increasing gender equity at a family level and seeking to address injustices in their community.