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.
They even lit the cooking fire.
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.
Kuchemana Burial Society
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 has 40 members aged between 23 and 72. They pay $3 monthly and receive groceries, cooking help and a $150 cash payout when a loved one dies.
Alongside funeral contributions, members now pay $10 monthly into a collective savings club. Members and trusted people in the community can borrow from the fund at 20% interest, with members sharing profits yearly.
“Borrow for health care, school fees or projects,” Mirisawu tells members gathered recently under an avocado tree.
Clad in matching T-shirts and floral skirts, they line up to pay subscriptions. A separate grocery program allows them to buy basics in bulk.
For Kasu, who was laid off from a hardware shop in 2022, the group’s attraction lies less in burial payouts than in the financial lifeline it provides.
She received $100 from the savings cycle in December. She borrowed another $30. No bank hassles.
“I bought two gas storage tanks and a scale and started selling gas to neighbours,” Kasu says.
“My small business has grown and I can now afford to buy my groceries every month and also look after and maintain myself.”
In Zimbabwe, burial societies date to the early 20th century, in the colonial era, when migrant workers formed mutual aid groups to ensure dignified funerals far from home in places like neighbouring South Africa.
The tradition has endured in Zimbabwe, where funeral insurance is more common than health insurance, which many people cannot afford. Official statistics show fewer than one in 10 have it.
Reports by insurance firms, research companies and the country’s statistics agency indicate funeral policies are the most widely held form of insurance in the country, with providers, and even mobile phone companies, promoting low-cost policies.
But members say the community-based burial societies survive in large part because they provide something that companies struggle to match: a sense of belonging.
