Social Entrepreneur: Conscious Companies | Benefit Corporations | Impact Investing

Verengai Mabika sees the opportunities created by climate change. Eighty percent of Zimbabwe’s businesses depend on Agriculture. Most agriculture in Zimbabwe is rain-fed. Climate change brings record high temperatures and frequent droughts. When crops fail, so does Zimbabwe’s economy. The droughts, combined with land reform, changed Zimbabwe from a net exporter of agricultural products to an importer of food. There are currently around four million people who need food aid in Zimbabwe. Verengai Mabika has a passion for designing green communities. He was trained as an urban planner with an emphasis on environmental design. In 2009, there was a sharp rise in political violence. Verengai told me, “I was surprised by the way our leaders were taking advantage of young people who had so much energy. I thought I could motivate a few young people to get into a discourse that I believed was very serious and could bring some opportunities for them.” The Development Reality Institute taps into the high number of unempl