PHILANTHROPIST, socialite, organiser Marylene Monroe, the Dress-to-Kill, Proud Gogo, Queen of 5th Avenue, those were some of the names used to describe the late Gogo Wodumo, Rose Nyathi.
The social activist, who died on Saturday morning last week, was popular in Bulawayo for her advocacy for vulnerable people through her spontaneous videos on social media.
The “Ambassador of Vendors” was often mistaken for being tribalist due to always calling out her Shona colleagues at the city market and referencing them as Shona people.
However, during her funeral at the Bulawayo Amphitheater, speaker after speaker exonerated her as never having a tribalist bone in her body.
“If she had been a tribalist, would she have been friends with me? I am Shona and I was her best friend even to the end of her life, I was there with her. She actually loved and respected everyone. What she hated was an unfair system and injustice,” said her friend only identified as NaFarai.
“She did not want anything that did not favour Bulawayo. She championed cleanliness in Bulawayo. She taught me so much and actually fought for me to get a stand at tower block there. She said she wants me to be next to her. By the way, the father of her own children is also Shona.”
Church members from City Methodist described her as a mother to the motherless.
Dorcas Nicholson said Gogo Rose had the spirit of a vulture.
- Byo celebrates late Gogo Wodumo
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“In the early 2000s when there was Operation Murambatsvina, so many people lost their houses. There was a group of people who had TB and some had HIV and she said to me, ‘let’s look for a place for them to live’.
“We failed to secure a place because back then, TB and HIV were seen as something to never get close to then. She took them in at her house in Makokoba and stayed with them,” Nicholson said.
“So during the day, she would go to the market and sell, then in the evening, come back and take care of them. She had what I call the vulture spirit, a vulture can easily summon others from afar to gather.
“She was able to pull a crowd and unite people. Like this one time, we had an outreach programme in church. She managed to gather widows and we got donations for them.”
Makokoba councillor Thandiwe Moyo said Gogo Rose was responsible for the education of some children in the ward.
“Some people did not know that. May we continue like that with her work. I am pleased that at least we won the petition to have her laid at Lady Stanley. She earned it and as councillors, we fought for her,” she said.
Gogo Rose is survived by her three sons and one daughter.
She was buried at Lady Stanley Cemetery in Bulawayo, which is now reserved for outstanding residents in the city.
