Zimbabwean Voices

For episode 15, I had the pleasure of having a conversation with Dalumuzi Mhlanga, the founder of Notto Africa, a digital platform dedicated to helping people access affordable home loans.

Prior to starting Notto, Dalumuzi worked as Chief of Staff for the Econet Group.

As a highly decorated scholar, he completed his undergraduate degree at Harvard University and was thereafter awarded a Rhodes Scholarship at Oxford University for his postgraduate education.

During his studies, he also founded a non-profit organization that provided leadership training to thousands of school children in Zimbabwe.

In our conversation, we covered his journey to date and his passion for developing the African continent by uplifting the lives of its people.

Enjoy!

For episode 14, I had the honour of speaking with Mukudzei “King Kandoro” A Zimbabwean standup comedian.

In our conversation, we covered his journey to date, his career aspirations, and his desired future for the Zimbabwean arts community & comedy scene.

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My favourite excerpt from our conversation:

“Art in Zimbabwe for the most part is being treated as a thing that is only available to people that go to private schools. Imagine treating fine art as a thing that is only available to private schools?

So from a structural perspective, open up community centers. These centers are already there but right now most of them are local bars. So open up community centers, let people play sports, and let people have art classes. If it's music, percussion.

There are these separations in art. Why is marimba an instrument that is played mainly in the ghetto but guitars, cellos, and violins up north?”

For episode 13, I had the honour of speaking with Nia. A Zimbabwean content creator, entrepreneur & author. In our conversation, we covered her story, passion for travel, content, and business.

Most importantly, we spoke about how she is using her platform to shed a positive light on Zimbabwe

My favourite excerpt from our conversation:

“I have a platform and with a platform people always want you do something with it. So for me showcasing the beauty of Zimbabwe. That is doing something.”

Enjoy!

For the first episode of Season 2, I had the honour of speaking with Blessing Chinanga, filmmaker and co-founder of Invision Studios. In this episode, we covered his life story and career trajectory to date. Most importantly though we touched on the collective thinking needed to fix the Zimbabwean Film Industry.

My favourite excerpt from our conversation:

"How this industry is supposed to be structured, is that it's supposed to be structured in four pillars.

What needs to happen is these four pillars need to understand that there is capital here with the asset-base of the Zimbabwean story. The Zimbabwean story is an asset in itself.  We have so many stories and we need to see those stories as assets."

For the final episode of Season 1, I had the privilege of talking to Zimbabwean athlete Farai Mudariki. Currently playing his rugby in France we spoke of his journey to where is now and the lesson he has picked up on the way.

In our conversation some of the key takeaways include:

My favorite excerpt from our conversation

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"This is this duty I have, as a Zimbabwean athlete, I'm not only playing to earn a decent amount of money. I'm a representation of a life you can build for yourself.

I actually went to visit St. John's prep when I was back home recently and I went to speak to the kids. And these guys were in grade seven, some of them were in grade five. Initially, I was speaking to them thinking they may not be listening to me but I was shocked at the quality of the questions they were asked afterward.

Questions like sorry, sir. Can you tell me if I wanted to play professional rugby can I build a life for myself and send my kid to school? And the feedback that I got from Mr. Mbundire and Welly who are the coaches, was that the talk was so good we need to do that again but at assembly, because these kids were phoning their parents telling them that “we had Farai who is a professional rugby player who came to speak to us today he gave us the rugby jersey. He was sitting here a couple of years ago. Mr. Mbundire was his coach and if Mr. Mbundire is my coach now, maybe I can also do the same thing.

So I have a huge role to play in the sense of representation."

Be Inspired!

For episode 10 I had the privilege of having a great conversation with leading Zimbabwe health & fitness coach Otis Goredema. With over 25 years of experience in the bodybuilding industry, Otis has trained Zimbabweans of all shapes and sizes and has used his platform to bring transformation to the lives of the people he touches.

In our conversation some of the key takeaways include:

My favorite excerpt from our conversation

"Basically, I had finished school and I was dropping my baby sister at Gateway and I was coming back home. After having dropped her I was at an intersection where I was stationary and I got hit in the back literally by a bus and that bus forced me into oncoming traffic and in the oncoming traffic there was a truck. Remember, I'm repeating what I was told and if I remember correctly, I probably was in my pijama shorts, with my driver's license left at home, just wanting to go visit my sister come back and go to bed.

I broke all my ribs, I broke my hands, I cracked one bone in my leg, and then, of course, I had lacerations from the windscreen of the car. I spent some time in the ICU on ventilator machines and this is coming from a guy who was physically strong at that age, I had a nice body from bodybuilding, I looked good and suddenly I'm confined to bed where I can't even feed myself.

I actually managed to make the front page of the Herald news. Because they took a picture of the accident, which I still have saved somewhere. It was a miracle that a person was hit by a truck and survived. For me to survive. I give all glory and thanks to God.

I went through rehabilitation. In my head, I think an epiphany came and I said, the day I get better. I'm gonna make sure I have a strong body and I'm going to make sure that I make other people physically stronger.

Now, I can tell you with appreciation now that one of the best things that ever happened to me was the car accident because I realised from then that if there's anything for lack of a better term to use that the devil can get you with is vanity. My body was gone, My face without spot or blemish was now full of scars and then I realised there's a lot more to life than the physical. So by the time you met me, I was that person who believed it's not about what you become, it's about who you become.  You can become a giver, you can become a generous person... So personal training and training people is just me trying to express and change people into who they should become confident with themselves and do that without vanity. So to me, it's not really about the bodybuilding it's about, changing humans"

Be Inspired!

"When we started Miss Deaf PrideTrust our main goal was to empower young women who are deaf. and to also fight for their rights so that they can stand for their rights because we found that there was constitutional illiteracy, in the deaf community.

So we did many workshops, to try to educate them so that people don’t abuse their rights. From the feedback we had from the workshops, we found out that it was their first time finding out about their rights to education, rights to information, and everything…

Now, if something happens within the community, it's easy for them to identify that they've been abused, and now they are now coming to our office and reporting so many different cases which is a great achievement.

We also set up the first Miss Deaf Pride Zimbabwe Pagent in 2019. It was a national competition, with girls from all four corners of the country. The winning Queen of the competition went to compete at the Miss Deaf Pride Africa in Seychelles and she was awarded the first Princess award which means as Zimbabweans we are doing great things in Africa.

Now she is based in Gweru and empowering other deaf people in her community by doing workshops which is great. We are doing this for the sake of the deaf community because we don't want people to view us as a charity. we want the deaf community to be an empowered community"

For Episode 8 I had the privilege of having a great conversation with Lungile Tshuma,  founder of the Tshuma Foundation. A great guy with a passion for Zimbabwe. Born in Bulawayo, Lungi has lived in 4 different countries and built a life initially through the sport of rugby.

Through the platform of playing for the Zimbabwe U20 & Senior rugby team, 8 years ago he got a scholarship to attend Lindenwood University in the USA where he studied International Relations. More recently, however,  he has pivoted into a career in business having recently finished his MBA and Washington University in St Louis.

In his own words “Sport was my first platform, then I pivoted to business”. “I wanted to elevate my skills so I could be someone of value in the business world so I decide to apply to an elite business school”.

At the core of his ambitions in both sport and business, his driving motivation has always been "to represent Zimbabweans, do well, and have an impact". His belief is that "a lot of the problems that are being solved in Zimbabwe and on the African continent are in small businesses and entrepreneur’s hands”

In going to business school his aim was to gain the skills that would equip him with the resources to help create new businesses that are innovative, solve problems that are going to make people wealthier, and expose talent to opportunities.

Like many Zimbabweans, he has had to build a life abroad. However, what stands out about Lungi is that he has intentionally chosen to use all the opportunities he has been given to pay it forward to other young Zimbabwean rugby players through the establishment of the Tshuma Foundation

“The foundation is based on the simple idea that I am where I am because the world said I was talented. But there are others that are also talented that deserve the same opportunity. The foundation is a scholarship for a talented rugby player to go to Lindenwood University. But the important thing is that it’s based on character. The recipient of the scholarship must be a good person, an ambassador, a leader and to have an impact on people around them in a positive way. Which is more important than their sporting talent.

It’s not like I’m a millionaire or I’m killing it but I have a lot of opportunities. I have more opportunities than a lot of people. And it wasn’t easy for me to get here but it could be easier… and it’s me just trying to pave the way for other talented people so that they can do the same for others. We’re trying to create a domino effect of paying it forward for Zimbabweans”

For episode 8, I had the honour of having a conversation with Suraiya Essof, founder of Kites for Peace and the Zimbabwe Cares Network. Nonprofits are dedicated to community upliftment and helping others through philanthropy. The main things I learned from our conversation were:

My favourite excerpt from our conversation

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Dumi: "To end off, I was listening to an interview that you did recently. And he spoke of suicide is up, depression is up. And everyone is jaded, which I find very jarring, but true at the same time, because you can't run away from the truth it is what it is. I guess the question I have is, what is shifting this narrative look like for you?"

Suraiya; "Okay, so there's a, there's a famous story about, about the little boy who, who was in the car with his mother, and he and they drove past an accident. And he was very distressed. And his mom said to him, don't look at that. Look at the helpers. It's a big accident. It's something terrible has happened. But look at all these people that are helping. And that is the perspective of the Zimbabwe case network, I mean, just personally speaking so many times, you know, when I'm feeling really down and just totally out of hope. And then I'll just look and somebody will be saying, oh, we're doing this today, or we've done this, or look at this donation we received or we did a medical outreach or whatever it is, 

These people are in the same battle, we're in the same boat but look at them. But these people are out there going out on our terrible roads, and they go in with full of boxes of medicine, and they're going in there helping people. Why? You know, they don't they don't have to. They don't have to be doing it. And you look at these people and you think, this situation is so terrible.

And it's so easy to just give up. But when you look at people like this, and you say, wow, these are the helpers, this is the light, these people that are still shining light, and sometimes you shine your light, and for them, because they're not superheroes, I'm not a superhero. So sometimes, you know, I'll shine my light for them, and then they'll shine the light. But as long as they have some source of light some way we will be okay. 

So this is the narrative to focus on. I'm not telling you to focus on the past, I'm telling you to focus on the negative, acknowledge it and then look, look to the people who are helping the situation and get inspiration from them.  Let them give you ideas of how you can help."

Be Inspired!

For episode 6, I had the honour of having a conversation with musician Declan Mackay of the Mackayz band. A proud Zimbabwean who has managed to carve out a niche for himself through music. To be completely honest, I was fascinated to hear about and share Declan’s journey as it offers a different story to the dominant narrative of white Zimbabwean men always being tied to farming... From our conversation I learned about:

- Living authentically

- Supporting yourself through art

- The power of a community supporting its artists

Enjoy