Lubango - The central Huila province had on Friday its first solid waste collectors' cooperative called "Ekuatiso", as part of the "Zero Waste in Lubango city" project, implemented by the NGO Epongoloko.
The cooperative is made up of 68 members, 41 of whom are women, who have been working for three years on this project.
Ekuatiso, which means "to pick up together" in the national Umbundu language, is made up of three governing bodies, namely the board of the general assembly and the directive and fiscal councils.
Henrique Chilala, head of the cooperative, expressed a feeling of joy and the responsibility of working for a common good, after the training they had received, since now the challenge will be to work on attracting investment to boost the activity.
He said that before the project they worked individually, going around the neighborhoods collecting drums, broken chairs and other material to sell, but they didn't have the idea that working in the collective would bring advantages to the members.
The administrative assistant of the NGO Epongoloko, Eduardo Ngulo, on his turn said the creation of the waste pickers' cooperative was based on one of the objectives of DEZEL, which aims to support the capacities of civil society organizations as actors in governance.
The "Zero Waste" project, which will run from November 2021 to October 2024, but for technical reasons was only launched in June 2022, has overall funding of 500,000 euros, 450,000 of which from the European Union and 50,000 from Epongoloko.
The national NGO Epongoloko, which means "Change" in the national language Umbundu, has existed since 1999, and was institutionalized with a view to support the most vulnerable by contributing efforts to carry out rural diagnoses that make it possible to identify the pressing problems of the communities. EM/MS/TED/AMP
