Zimbabwe - Women of Rubies

In Inspiration September 4, 2023 By Esther Ijewere

Angeline Makore: A Leading Voice Against Child Marriage in Zimbabwe

In the heart of Zimbabwe, Angeline Makore stands as a beacon of hope and a catalyst for transformative change. A fervent youth activist, Angeline’s unwavering dedication is reshaping lives and communities across the nation. Her tireless efforts span various crucial fronts, from advocating for women’s rights and mental health to combatting violence against women and girls. Join us as we delve into the inspiring journey of Angeline Makore and her remarkable impact on her country.

Championing Women and Girls

At the core of Angeline Makore’s expertise lies her resolute commitment to championing the cause of women and girls. Her ceaseless work to end violence, promote sexual and reproductive health, and foster female empowerment serves as a testament to her unwavering passion. Angeline’s efforts radiate hope for countless women throughout Zimbabwe.

Her visionary contributions have transcended national borders. Angeline earned acclaim by receiving the prestigious Takeda Young Entrepreneurship Award, recognizing her pioneering work with the Mwedzi Social Enterprise. This award underscores her innovative approaches to addressing the intricate challenges faced by women and girls.

Leading Spark R.E.A.D

Guiding Spark R.E.A.D, a youth-led nonprofit organization, Angeline Makore is driving transformative change on multiple fronts. Through this endeavor, she tackles vital aspects such as education, empowerment, and holistic well-being for young individuals. Spark R.E.A.D stands as a testament to her dedication to nurturing the potential of the next generation.

Angeline’s academic pursuits seamlessly align with her advocacy efforts. Armed with a Bachelor’s degree in Psychology with honors, she translates knowledge into tangible action. As a Women Deliver Young Leader and a Vital Voices VVLead Fellow Alumna, her impact extends beyond borders, solidifying her role as a catalyst for change.

A Global Catalyst for Change

Angeline firmly believes in the transformative power of young individuals to effect lasting change. Her vision encompasses communities characterized by sustainability, health, and economic stability. Her participation as a European Parliament Sakharov Fellow and her role as a peer-to-peer judge in the GenH Challenge by Johnson & Johnson exemplify her commitment to driving global change through local initiatives.

A Remarkable Journey Continues

Angeline Makore’s journey, from an impassioned youth activist to an influential advocate for female empowerment and youth advancement, underscores the potency of dedication and innovation. With each milestone achieved and recognition earned, she etches an indelible mark on Zimbabwe’s landscape. As Angeline continues to lead, inspire, and innovate, she emerges as a formidable force shaping a future marked by equality and empowerment for all.

In Editor's Choice December 24, 2022 By Esther Ijewere

Dr. Nothabo Ncube: The Motivational Speaker Influencing Women To Find Their Purpose

Dr. Nothabo Ncube “Dr.Thabo” story encourages others to face and conquer their challenges. She is a Medical Doctor, Inspirational TEDx Speaker, Coach and a Mentor originally from Zimbabwe, now living in Canada.

Her powerful story of loss, struggle and determination encourages this generation to face their challenges and conquer them.

Having lost her mother at the tender age of fourteen, at her mother’s death bed, she made a promise to her to be a doctor in Zimbabwe. Destiny led her to Canada where she and her family found themselves living in Community Housing in Toronto, subjected to social ills that could have deterred her from her path.

Dr. Thabo was selected to attend The Intimate and Interactive OPRAH WINFREY Life class on “You Become What You Believe”, Through a whirlwind of inspirational lectures, round-table discussions and media appearances on platforms like Global News TV, Radio, CBC News Network, and selected Top 4 Immigrant Women of Inspiration/Influencers in Canada by The Canadian Immigrant Magazine.

She positively influences, challenges, and reconnects the millennials with their purpose. She uses incredible wit and candor to empower young girls and women.

Dr. Thabo is on a mission to inspire hope, to be a voice of empowerment, and the bridge to many who are marginalized, powerless and voiceless. It is her intention that through her vulnerable truth they feel seen, heard, and valued.

In this interview with Esther Ijewere, Dr. Nothabo Ncube shares her Inspiring story, and how her encounter with Oprah changed her life.

Childhood Influence

My childhood fully prepared me and set a healthy foundation for all that I am today and all that am yet becoming. Both my parents were teachers, and they both instilled the value of an education from a tender age. `It was my mother’s prophesy over my life that I would one day become a medical doctor – motivational and inspirational speaking is my higher purpose and calling. It is my intention to help the girl child and women to see themselves in a bigger light.

Why Dr. Nothabo Ncube Became a Motivational Speaker

In 2011 I needed money to attend medical school. I so happened to be chatting with a friend who was based in Chicago at the time, she then suggested that I go on the Oprah Winfrey Website to see if there were any bursaries or scholarships available. I followed her lead and went on oprah.com – there was nothing related to scholarships or bursaries, the first thing that popped up was, “Tell us your story – YOU BECOME WHAT YOU BELIEVE”.

I quickly typed in my story, submitted it, and earned myself a once in a lifetime opportunity of being a part of Oprah’s Life-class. That was the day that changed my trajectory and shifted my purpose awareness. I knew in that moment; I too was called to inspire for positive change and to give people hope.

Here I am now 11 years later, a full pledged INTERNATIONAL SPEAKER travelling the world and sharing my personal story of turning struggles into strength and pain into purpose.

The Journey So Far

The journey has come with twists and turns – difficulties. If it were not for my zeal, I would have long given up. I always say you do not choose the path; it chooses you and it sustains you. I am still going strong with it, evolving with life’s motions. Thankful to live in the space of my calling and purpose. I would not trade the peace and joy that comes with living in the space of my calling and purpose.

Challenges

Some of the challenges I have faced include being resisted and being doubted. No-one ever believes until you have delivered positive results.

How My Work Inspired Other Women Around Me

My work has inspired other women to commit to their healing journey and inspired them to become deliberate creators of their best lives possible.

Other Projects And Activities

I have a young women’s mentorship program which caters to the African girl-child in the continent. We provide them with the right tools and resources to help them pursue their dreams and realize their visions.

What I Enjoy Most About My Job

I enjoy meeting and connecting with people from different works of life. I believe that through the power of storytelling we can heal individually and collectively.

3 Women Who Inspire Me And Why

My mother – she was a strong fearless woman who through example taught me that all things are possible when you believe in yourself.

Oprah Winfrey – she is the epitome of the manifestations of God’s consciousness and grace.

Michelle Obama – her nurturing warm leadership is awe-inspiring.

Dr. Nothabo speaking — Dr. Nothabo Ncube Speaking

To People Who Judge Ambitious Women

I would say, ambitious women are changing the world and creating a better world for all humans, support them.

To Women Who are trying to find their voice

To support women who are trying to find their voice in society, let’s create programs and structures that help them figure out who they are and create safe spaces which give women the permission to be vulnerable and to show up as they are.

Being A Woman of Rubies

I lead a courageous and fearless life. I am a woman who is true to her purpose and living it out loud unapologetically.

To A Young Person On The Verge Of Giving Up

I would say to a young person who is on the verge of giving up, that they should hold on and that it will get better with time. Each season serves a unique purpose in their journey – that the season they are walking in is preparing, moulding, and refining them for their BIG dream and purpose.

Where I see Myself In 10 Years

I see myself as a voice of change, hope and inspiration all over the world. I hope to one day have my own radio and TV show.

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Watch: Redefining Leadership

In Career Gems January 3, 2022 By Women of Rubies

Vimbai Butawu Is Helping Young Learners In Zimbabwe Discover Their Passion

Vimbai Angela Butawu is a Zimbabwean young social entrepreneur. She is an energetic, goal-oriented young lady with a heart for social development especially focusing on child and youth development.

She holds 2 degrees from the University of Monash South Africa. She graduated with her first degree in Bachelor of Social Sciences (2017) double majoring in Child and Youth Development and Criminology and holds a Postgraduate Degree (2019) in Business Management specializing in Corporate Governance.

Vimbai’s commitment to service is outstanding and has been internationally recognized. She was one of only 10 students out of more than one million students worldwide in the Laureate Universities network (200 campuses worldwide) who were recognized as honorees of the Here for Good Award—for making a positive social impact in their communities and countries. In the same year, through the MSA LEAD program, she was selected as one of the top 10 social entrepreneurs in South Africa.

She started My Africa Child and Youth Development Organization in 2018. Her dream is to make a positive change in Africa, creating opportunities for young people. She believes that young people are the future leaders and giving them a platform for positive growth will be beneficial to the development of the continent. Her vision is to create an organization that focuses on making a profit for good, thus creating a self-sustainable organization making a positive social impact on the continent.

On what she does at MACYDO

MACYDO is an organization that focuses on the development of young people in Africa. We aim to groom young people to become influential leaders and change-makers in their communities and countries and play a vital role in Africa’s economic and social development. We believe that young people are tomorrow’s leaders; therefore, it is of utmost importance to invest in them positively.

MACYDO focuses on various sectors that play a role in young people’s lives: education, Entrepreneurship, Health, and Entertainment. MACYDO has been operating since 2018. The organization was found in South Africa and has impacted more than 50 young people through our talent-based Saturday classes.

In 2020 MACYDO Education launched a scholarship program in Zimbabwe, and we currently have 20 scholars benefiting from the program. The scholarship program focuses not only on providing education funding for the scholars but also on self-development, leadership, and entrepreneurship training for all our scholars.

In 2021 MACYDO Entrepreneurship pioneered a fellowship program for young entrepreneurs in Zimbabwe – MACYDO Leading Entrepreneurs foR African Development Program (LEAD). The program focuses on empowering entrepreneurs with projects that impact the country.

In Career Gems September 21, 2020 By Women of Rubies

Tsitsi Dangarembga and Maaza Mengiste Have Been shortlisted For The 2020 Booker Prize

Tsitsi Dangarembga and Maaza Mengiste have been shortlisted for the Booker Prize for fiction this year.

Zimbabwean novelist Tsitsi Dangarembga and Ethiopian-American author Maaza Mengiste’s two novels “This Mournable Body” and “The Shadow King” respectively, made it to the longlist among 13 contenders, which were selected from 162 novels by a panel of five judges. Now, they have also been shortlisted for the prize.

“The Shadow King is on #TheBookerPrize Shortlist!!!!!!!!!!!! I don’t know what to say. OH MY GOD! Elelelelelelelelelele” Mengiste shared on Twitter after finding out the news.

The Booker Prize for fiction is a literary prize awarded each year for the best original novel written in English and published in the United Kingdom.

The Booker prize, has been won by three Africans, Nadine Gordimer, Ben Okri, and J. M. Coetzee. Africans who have been shortlisted are Marie NDiaye, Noviolet Bulawayo, Chigozie Obioma and Oyinkan Braithwaite.

The winner of the 2020 Booker Prize receives £50,000 and can expect international recognition. The shortlisted authors each receive £2,500 and a specially bound edition of their book.

Dangarembga and Mengiste are the only two writers from Africa on the list of 6 authors. Other shortlisted authors include:

“The New Wilderness” by Diane Cook
“Burnt Sugar” by Avni Doshi
“Shuggie Bain” by Douglas Stuart
“Real Life” by Brandon Taylor

Watch the shortlist announcement:

In self development November 1, 2019 By Editor

MEET ZIMBABWE’S WOMEN-ONLY RANGERS FIGHTING POACHING

She didn’t consider quitting — she even smiled as her finger was bandaged, before returning to the brutal military-style training.

“I’m happy, that’s why I am not crying. I’m trying to be an Akashinga girl,” the 22-year-old said.

The rangers, armed and dressed in khaki combat gear, track and arrest poachers in five reserves, all former trophy hunting areas, encompassing 4,000 square kilometres (1,545 square miles) near the Zambian border in northern Zimbabwe.

If recruited, Mutero would become one of an elite few — out of 500 applicants, only 80 will make it into the ranks of the Akashinga, or “brave ones” in local dialect.

Being brave will certainly count in her job of helping to protect the wildlife against poachers who are often heavily armed.

But all the women are also “survivors”, selected for the ranger recruitment programme for having overcome adversity, often abuse, in their past.

Mutero married young and moved to South Africa with her husband and daughter, where she was physically abused by her mother-in-law.

She returned to rural Zimbabwe to raise her daughter alone and broke as her husband refused to send money.

“But now I am here to empower myself to take care of my child,” she said, proudly talking of the importance of the country’s wildlife and its conservation.

Mutero made it into the last 160 potential recruits, who faced a series of gruelling tests of their physical and mental strength in the Phundundu Wildlife Area.

Over several days, the women raced under the beating sun, wrestled each other and a dozen even lifted a giant tree trunk over their heads.

Only the toughest make the cut.

‘The toughest’

Damien Mander, 39, a former military sniper in the Australian army who also worked in the private security sector in Iraq, started the programme in 2017 as part of the non-profit International Anti-Poaching Foundation that he founded.

“We were trying to create an opportunity for the most marginalised women in some of the toughest regions, in one of the poorest countries on the continent,” he said.

“They are all survivors of serious sexual assault, domestic violence, AIDS orphans, single mothers, abandoned wives.”

“We didn’t want great CVs, actually we wanted scrappers. People that knew what it was like to have to fight to survive, and that’s exactly what we got,” he told AFP.

“What we didn’t realise is we were getting the toughest.”

Hardships faced by the women in rural Zimbabwe also steel them for life on the frontline against poaching, says one of the trainers Paul Wilson, also a former soldier.

“These guys are used to walking a long way with a 20-litre bucket of water on their head, spending all day digging or hoeing in the field, carrying large amounts of firewood… these girls know how to work,” he said.

More than ‘biceps and bullets’

Mander said that his time in Iraq had helped him understand that “law enforcement isn’t about biceps and bullets”.

It is more about establishing relationships and longterm ties with communities, he said, adding the women also had the ability “to naturally de-escalate tension”.

All Akashinga rangers come from villages near the area they patrol, so they can work with the locals and have a vested interest.

“We have gone from having anti-poaching units fighting against the community, to having a community fight for what we believe in,” Mander said.

The women rangers plough up to 90 percent of their earnings into their families and local community, compared to 30 to 40 percent for men, he added.

“The biggest thing that we’ve seen is we haven’t had a single incidence of corruption with women,” he said.

‘Increasingly militarised’

It has been working.

Before the Akashinga started patrolling the area, around 8,000 elephants were killed there over 16 years.

Since they arrived two years ago, elephant poaching has dropped 80 percent, according to the International Anti-Poaching Foundation.

The women have made 115 arrests — without them firing a single shot.

But it is dangerous work.

“Conservation is becoming increasingly militarised,” Mander said.

“More and more poachers are coming in here with weapons and they are willing to kill elephants and the people that are protecting them.”

Mander said that he hopes to have “a small army of 1,000 women” protecting 20 reserves by 2025.

Lives transformed

Ranger Juliana Murumbi, a member of the first Akashinga class, said that she had held her own against men during specialised training to become an instructor earlier this year.

“I managed to challenge the men in physical training, in the long run, the push-ups, the sit-ups, the drags,” she said.

“So I think we are just the same because what they can do, I can do.”

Nyaradzo Auxilia, another ranger, said that the programme was “totally transforming the standard of life of all women” involved, including herself.

“My husband used to abuse me. I can just simply say he was an abusive man. He was very violent to me,” the 27-year-old said.

She fled with her child, and is now one of many Akashinga able to support themselves.

The rangers earn between $300 and $1,200 (270 euros and 1,100 euros) a month, depending on their role.

“They can now stand on their own. They can now not depend on someone else — they can move on without being abused or facing that cruelty from the men,” she said.

That’s a future that Mutero can now look forward to — despite the broken finger, she passed the test and next year will start the final six-month training programme to become an Akashinga ranger.

Credit: AFP, pulse.ng

In Interviews&profile August 21, 2019 By Esther Ijewere

FAMOUS ZIMBABWEAN AUTHOR TSITSI DANGARAMBGA NOMINATED FOR LITERARY PRIZE BY USA COLLEGE

Renowned Zimbabwean author and prominent feminist Tsitsi Dangarembga has been shortlisted for the St. Francis College Literary Prize. The prize is a biennial literary award that first came to life in 2009.

The prize is a celebration of mid-career authors in honour of a third to fifth book of fiction. A jury selects the winner and they are invited to to St. Francis College in Brooklyn, New York for purposes of delivering a speech. It is pretty much a prestigious literary event as the winner walks away with a handsome $50,000.

Dangarembga could not hide her elation as she tweeted, “It’s an honour to be a finalist in this competition. I’m so grateful to the judges and all the people who gave so much to make THIS MOURNABLE BODY what it is. Wish me good fortune, folks!”

Tsitsi Dangarembga is one of the finest authors Zimbabwe, and Africa at large has ever produced. She is mostly known for her book Nervous Conditions that was published in 1988. That book won her the Commonwealth Writers’ Prize in 1989. Nervous Conditions was translated into many other languages, making it an international hit.

She wrote the script for the 1993 hit movie Neria. Neria became the highest-grossing movie in Zimbabwe and this was also aided by the fact that the soundtrack was done by the legebdary musician Oliver Mtukudzi.

“Nervous Conditions didn’t get any traction in Zimbabwe,” Dangarembga said when she spoke with DW. “I have always been writing against power and that’s why things don’t always happen.”

She is always determined to speaking truth to power and is also a notable voice when it comes to airing out and expressing feminist views.

Header image credit – Pindula