What happens when the solution to hunger is already sitting in front of us — but we let it go to waste?
In Zimbabwe, climate shocks, drought, and economic instability continue to put pressure on families trying to access nutritious food. At the same time, tons of fresh produce are lost after harvest because it spoils before it can reach people who need it most.
For entrepreneur Sizolwenkosi Mazolo, that contradiction became impossible to ignore.
She has experienced food scarcity herself. She knows what it meant for households to stretch meals, skip meals, or go without food. But she has also seen another reality: farmers working hard to grow food that never make it to the market because food preservation systems are lacking.
So, she built one.
Sizolwenkosi is the founder of Homegrown, an agro-processing business transforming fresh fruits and vegetables through freezing, drying, and canning in Zimbabwe. Her work helps food last longer, reduces waste, and makes nutritious products available beyond harvest seasons.
But this is about more than food preservation. It is about strengthening food systems from the ground up.
Across Africa, entrepreneurs are creating practical, locally driven solutions to some of the continent’s biggest challenges. Sizolwenkosi’s work is part of that story: one where innovation, resilience, and community-led ideas are already shaping a stronger future.
That’s what makes her a Futuremaker.
Why we call Sizolwenkosi a Futuremaker
Futuremakers — a movement championed by ONE — spotlights innovators like Sizolwenkosi who are creating solutions on the continent, for and beyond the continent.
Through Homegrown, she is helping smallholder farmers preserve more of what they grow instead of losing income to spoilage, improving families’ access to food during lean seasons, and proving that a challenge once seen as inevitable can, in fact, be solved.
This progress matters because the stakes are high.
Food insecurity affects health, education, livelihoods, and threatens economic opportunity. When food systems are fragile, entire communities feel the impact. But when investments support local entrepreneurs and strengthen systems that already exist, the ripple effects can reach far beyond one business or one town.
And for Sizolwenkosi, the mission remains deeply personal.
Alongside running Homegrown, she volunteers at a soup kitchen that feeds around 600 children every week.
Her work reflects something powerful: that enterprise and empathy are not separate forces. Together, they can create lasting change.
Futuremakers like Sizolwenkosi remind us that Africa’s future is not waiting to be built someday. It is already being built now — by people creating solutions rooted in lived experience, driven by determination, and designed to move entire communities forward.
For more stories like Sizolwenkosi’s, Follow ONE on Instagram and discover the bold African innovators building the sustainable, thriving future we all deserve.
