Zimbabwe's burial societies evolve to offer help to the living

Funerals are never easy for families mourning their loss. They can also be a moment of financial strain and stress.

Funerals in Zimbabwe demand a large and expensive send-off with food and music, and loved ones can slide into debt to avoid any public shame.

"A funeral is quite an intense and emotional thing," says Dr Jacob Mokhutso, Senior lecturer of Theology and Religion at the University of Pretoria in South Africa. "You are burying your loved one here, somebody you’ll never see again. Somebody who has contributed perhaps quite positively in one’s life, so you would want to do whatever it takes to ensure that they’re buried in a dignified manner.”

Some people are now turning to burial societies to help relieve the strain.

Melisa Kasu says her mother died when the family was least prepared.

"I joined this burial society in 2023 after the death of my mother who was a member. The burial society helped us quite a lot because death comes unannounced."

The 29-year-old says the local burial society arrived to save the day, carrying huge pots and sacks of corn meal and other supplies.

She took over her late mother’s membership and discovered a surprising cultural shift was underway: Burial societies in parts of Africa expanding to take care of the living, too.

Aside from supporting members' funerals, some now offer grocery savings plans and even small-business incubators.

They are helping families survive challenges like rising costs, limited access to bank loans and unstable incomes in a country where over two-thirds of people are informally employed. Members pay a small monthly subscription.

At a recent meeting of Kasu's Kuchemana Burial Society, death hardly featured on the agenda. Women sang, debated and pitched business ideas ranging from poultry farming to detergent-making.

"We started the idea of burying our families and friends because we found out that most of us do not come from privileged backgrounds and our funerals were not dignified and decent," says society secretary Nyadzisayi Mirisawu.

"We have since moved on from focusing on just mourning and burying each other and we have since developed a saving initiative as well as grocery contributions."

A group of women founded the society in Kuwadzana, a township in Zimbabwe’s capital of Harare, in 2021 to spare families what members called “embarrassing” funerals that expose poverty.

Burying a loved one well is one of the most important family obligations. Kuchemana means “mourning one another” in the local Shona language. But membership means more than funeral preparation.

The group h