Thirty orphans and 50 senior citizens are already on her register and receive monthly rations of rice, cooking oil, maize meal, salt, sugar and soap.
A businessperson, Muzambi said as a Christian she felt the need to help out the less fortunate. For more than a decade she has made sure that she delivers the food parcels personally to their different households.
Some of the orphans told The Zimbabwean how Muzambi’s philanthropic work had given them a new start in life.
“My parents died in 2004 within a space of nine months, leaving the three of us to fend for ourselves,” said Spiwe, whose parents were of Malawi ancestry and had no known relatives in Zimbabwe. “We live with an elderly ‘distant’ grandmother.”
Muzambi’s food basket, though relatively small, complements efforts by other national and international players in alleviating the plight of the vulnerable at a time when the World Food Programme was preparing to feed some estimated 2.2 million people facing starvation in Zimbabwe.
Born in a Christian family in Seke near Harare in 1955, she started work with the poor as a teenager when she joined the Samaritans Organisation of Gweru, which provided material and counselling services to the needy.
As she entered her adult life, she was heavily involved with Island Hospice, an organisation that helps terminally ill patients.
Michael Mabwe, spokesperson for National Association for Non-Governmental Organisations, commended Muzambi’s initiative in Marondera as a display of leadership, community concern and hard work.
According to Save the Children 2012 State of the World’s Mothers report, 450,000 people benefited from Save the Children programmes aimed at providing the needy with food, health care and child protection services during that year.
Despite all the assistance, the report said life for millions of the poorest children and women in Zimbabwe was still full of hardships. The economic and social meltdown experienced by Zimbabwe since early 2000, was partly blamed for the difficult circumstances experienced by the poor.
Post published in: News