When I was working for the great journalist, Willie Musarurwa at the Sunday Mail, we were instructed to find at least one “positive or development news” out of every 10 stories. Willie believed that journalists are largely responsible for building national consciousness.
Since the exodus of three million Zimbabweans in 2002, a very common theme among diasporas is the fact that Zimbabwean women have by far outpaced their men in adjusting, adapting, and making contributions to the land which was once their home.
The pride of being Zimbabwean speaks for itself, loudly and clearly.
There are many reasons for their success abroad, and in the words of one of them, their Zimbabwean educational background gave them an advantage wherever they went; but above all else, they transformed themselves like chameleons, as the photos provided will show, into new creatures and like Queen Esther, they seemed prepared for such a time as this.
I start at the Global Summit/ Women Changing the World, held in London on April 18 to 20. The leading spirit behind the London Conference, 2023 is one of our own, Dr. Terarayi Trent.
By the time Sister Terarayi was 18-years-old in rural Zimbabwe, she was married and had three children. Going to school was not a priority for girls, so she taught herself how to read, write and with a prophetic eye to the future, scripted her dreams on a scroll and sealed them in a jar. One of her dreams was one day to go to America.
Now, with Oprah Winfrey’s help and encouragement, she helps 4 000 children through Tinogona Foundation. Her story is inspiring, even without words, but above everything else, she flies Zimbabwe’s flag proudly.
The Global Summit of Women Changing the World attracted 1 000 veterans from all over the world. During the workshops the women shared their experiences.
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Their commitment is not hidden; it is “to create a meaningful difference in the world” for girls and humanity.
Dr. Gallie Kawanzaruwa
Among the finalists at this conference and whose story is riveting, is one of our own, a woman of substance, Dr. Galie Kawanzaruwa from Abu Dabi in the United Emirates. She scooped two awards, one silver and another bronze for her work in advancing women’s cause both in the Emirates and in Zimbabwe.
Typical of Zimbabwean women, her history is both fearful and tearful. She was “raised by a grandmother in a moderately poor family in Chivhu, Zimbabwe.” At the age of five, she found herself a care giver for her two polio-ravaged aunts as well as her aging two grandparents; cooking for them, fetching firewood and water. In this role she learned human management skills which served her very well in her adult life.
Like Dr. Talent, at the age of 25 she had two children, registered at a teacher training college, and set her mind to escape to the United Kingdom. During the Second Chimurenga for land (2002) she found herself at the University of Durham. It was from Durham that she went to the Emirates to study the lives of Muslim women of substance for her doctorate only to find herself drafted by a Sheikha (female Muslim ruler) to head a K-12 school for girls.
She writes in her biographical notes that her early life in Zimbabwe, desperate though it was, had an “enormous impact on the striver that I became. It provided me with human management skills, which would prove vital in a complex Muslim world where girls and boys were separated, solving problems, resilience, and perseverance.”
Her management skills were recognised as she moved from school head to senior academic officer in the university system of the Emirates, winning a golden award for leadership in 2021.
But as a woman of two worlds, she did not forget her homeland in Zimbabwe. She is the founder of Hatfield Elite Academy patterned after English public schools where learners are taught to dream and serve their country.
She supports 50 orphaned children in Mvurwi paramountcy who lost their parents to war, hunger, and HIV and Aids.
Tina Gwata is great!
I now turn to one of my own, Tinashe Gwata (nee Vincent) a Lander University graduate. Recently, I was called by movers and shakers in the academic world who wanted to know about this Tina, whose artistic gifts they likened to one of the greatest South Carolinian Afro-artists, Jonatan Green.
Teaching American kids is like carrying a cross. But for Tina, her Zimbabwean commitment to education eventually carried the day as she registered a 100% pass rate in advanced placement examinations; motivated her students to win the Gold and Silver Scholastic regional student award (2016-2019) three years in a row.
I have heard the name Tina Gwata (now Vincent) compared to South Carolina’s state Afro-artist Jonathan Green.
The comparison is earth shattering because Jonathan Green is not only the state artist, but represents black life in its most positive and joyous state.
Tina has, according to the Upstate Green Hill curator, “brought a combination of machine quilting collage and painting in powerful and joyous depictions of friends and family”.
Until Tina produces another masterpiece, the image of a black boy in a white cloth cap, must remain her trademark. But Tina’s art is revolutionary and rebellious, the essence lying in the fact that in her own words, she is “trying to show beauty is overlooked people or situations.”
The moral of the story seems to be that whenever societies undergo traumatic changes, men lose their status and leadership roles. Women are therefore, left in a situation of self-total transformation like chameleons; adapt and adopt, or the nation will die.
In Masvingo, they call such women, “hanzvadzi rume” (loose translation-daughter ruler}. Lastly, it is amazing that even as they tell their painful histories, they walk humbly in the lands that have welcomed them from the cold, yet they remember Zion with love and fly her flag with pride.
Ken Mufuka is a Zimbabwean patriot. He writes from the US.
