Zimbabwe burial societies expand into safety nets for daily survival

Burial societies in Harare’s high-density suburbs are doing far more than paying for coffins. As wages slip and formal credit stays out of reach, these mutual-aid groups are stepping in with groceries, cash, cooking help and small loans that keep households afloat between deaths.

Melisa Kasu learned that first at her mother’s funeral, when her local burial society arrived with cooking supplies and practical help for the expensive customs that can include food, music and other social expectations. She later inherited her mother’s membership in 2023 and came to see the group as something more durable than a burial fund: a place that could help a family survive while its members were still alive.

That shift is visible in Kuchemana Burial Society, founded in 2021 by women in Kuwadzana, a township in Harare. Kuchemana means “mourning one another” in Shona, but its work now reaches beyond mourning. The group has 40 members, ages 23 to 72, who pay small monthly subscriptions. One arrangement collects $3 a month for funeral support and another $10 a month into a savings club that can provide groceries, a $150 cash payout when someone dies and loans for health care, school fees or small projects.

At a recent meeting, death barely came up. Women sang, debated and pitched ideas such as poultry farming and detergent-making, turning a burial society gathering into a business forum and a mutual-aid clinic. Secretary Nyadzisayi Mirisawu put the change plainly: “We wanted dignity in death. Now we are striving for it in life,” and “We don’t want members suffering while alive.”

Zimbabwe’s wider economy helps explain the appeal. A 2025 news review said families earning around US$150 a month, or less, could face burial costs of more than US$4,000 for a decent funeral, while grave-digging fees, coffins and weekend burial charges in Harare pushed the bill even higher. The Insurance and Pensions Commission said 100,000 funeral policies had lapsed by the third quarter of 2024 because people could not keep up payments. With more than two-thirds of Zimbabweans working informally, the state’s 2024 decision to launch an Informal Economy Social Protection Priority Needs Assessment Survey through ZIMSTAT and NSSA underscored how far official safety nets still have to catch up.

Burial societies are not new. They date to the early 20th century, when migrant workers formed mutual-aid groups to ensure dignified funerals far from home, including in South Africa. A 1987 academic study described them as established features of urban life in Harare, providing help in death and illness. In today’s Zimbabwe, they are once again becoming what formal institutions are not: a daily survival system built from the ground up.