These are no mean roles, as they are located firmly in areas that are sensitive in Zimbabwe. She is fighting for the emancipation of the historically marginalised woman, while at the same time using innovative approaches to ensure a sustainable link between the humanitarian sector and the media, through effective information flows between the two sectors.
Her pleasant smile belies a sad past, one shared by far too many girl children in Zimbabwe. She was exposed to domestic violence at a tender age and, as she readily acknowledges, that directly fuelled a passion in her to fight for the promotion of women’s and human rights.
Her parents divorced when she was three years old and she had to move in with her maternal grandmother in Plumtree, where, for the subsequent three years, she lived.
Her traumatised mother then married a policeman, but she later discovered that she had made a grave mistake as he was of an extremely violent and mean disposition.
“My mother believed in using her hands. I remember her selling sadza from a wheelbarrow to road builders,’’ said Muwanigwa. However, her efforts to bring modest decency to the family through her hard work came to nought.
“My stepfather would take the money and disappear every Friday,” she said. “Mine was a difficult and violence-infested background.”
Muwanigwa was lucky, though, because her mother had a never-say-die attitude to life. She kept toiling to ensure the children remained in school, and Muwanigwa complemented her mother’s efforts with excellent showing in class, receiving several awards along the way.
“I remember at one point in time I got very sick and was admitted at Harare Hospital. When I woke, there was a strange woman at my bedside. She was my biological father’s mother. My mother could not be there because she had been seriously beaten by my father,” said Muwanigwa.
Her mother had fled the matrimonial home and sought refuge at a relative’s house for two days, thus was in the dark about her child’s condition. Muwanigwa was diagnosed to be suffering from appendicitis and she badly needed an operation, but there was no one to consent to the medical routine on her behalf. Eventually her grandmother came to the rescue.
Muwanigwa had always dreamt of studying law – but after missing the required grades at A-Level, she had no choice but to find work elsewhere, taking up a job with the then Central Statistics Office for a year.
Her second love was journalism, so she trained her focus on that, subsequently joining the Southern Africa Research and Documentation Centre in 2004 and “that is how my journalism career began”.
She has spent her life harnessing her gender, media and communications talents to build a world in which women and girls are able to demand, secure and enjoy their social, economic and political rights both within the private and public spheres. And her pledge is that she will soldier on until she drops dead. “Zimbabwe has very good policies on gender. Our biggest challenge is on implementation,’’ she says.
Muwanigwa has more than 20 years’ experience working in various organisations, among them International Federation of Building and Wood Workers, Africa Regional Office, Intermediate Technology Development Group, now Practical Action, Zimbabwe Women’s Resource Centre and Network, ActionAid International Zimbabwe and HIFC.
Her activism is augmented by a strong education. She holds a Master’s in Business Administration and BSc in Sociology and Gender Development Studies, in addition two diplomas in Journalism and Workers’ Education. She has written more than 500 articles, edited many gender and human rights books and fundraised for many women organisations.
She has travelled widely, is married to a quiet and supportive husband and is a mother of two.
Post published in: News