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Tendai Rupapa in MOSCOW, Russia

FIRST Lady Dr Auxillia Mnangagwa’s Angel of Hope Foundation has received special commendation from the Minister of the Government of Moscow, who is also the head of the department for international affairs of Moscow City Hall, Mr Sergey Cheremin, in a development that shows how she has captured the imagination of the world with her life-changing work.

The First Lady was accompanied by officials from the Ministries of Health and Child Care, Youth, Sport, Arts and Recreation and Higher and Tertiary Education, Innovation, Science and Technology, among other line ministries during the meeting.

Other areas of possible cooperation discussed included Dr Mnangagwa’s humanitarian work and as the country’s health and child care ambassador, they discussed on partnership focusing on revamping and equipping polyclinics, among a wide-range of issues.

At the invitation of Mr Cheremin, the First Lady, who is the country’s environment and tourism patron, toured the Smart City Pavilion, a multimedia exhibition of Moscow technologies for people to explore unique digital solutions and electronic services that help change for the better residents’ everyday lives.

The pavilion incorporates captivating zones such as Smart Transport, City Management Centre, Digital Medicine, Moscow Electronic School, Landscaping and Comfort, Active Moscow.

The second pavilion she visited deals with water purification and waste-recycling, which falls under the ambit of the First Lady who, as the environment patron, is spearheading efforts to promote recycling of waste to earn money and allow for a clean environment.

During the meeting, Mr Cheremin acknowledged the role Amai Mnangagwa is playing in alleviating the plight of the less privileged through her trailblazing Angel of Hope Foundation.

“Very warm greetings from the Mayor of Moscow and we are happy that we already have good cooperation with your wonderful country.

“Your Angel of Hope Foundation is a very important organisation, which creates an enabling environment for the talented young people and makes a lot of charity not only in your country, but also the world. We really thank you so much for your contribution in empowering marginalised groups.

“I am happy that you visited some centres that are managing the municipal activity of Moscow and for us it is really important to cooperate with Harare to improve the city’s environment.

“Moscow has quite good achievements in this field of clean city and very advanced so we can suggest to our colleagues in Harare to share with them the experience in this field,” he said.

Mr Cheremin said Russia had been awarded high rankings in managing the Covid-19 pandemic and was willing to share its expertise in the field with Zimbabwe.

“We think also that we could cooperate in the field of healthcare because Moscow healthcare is really experienced, especially during this pandemic time. We got good results in managing this crisis,” he said.

“I hope that your visit to Moscow is going to be very fruitful and it’s really important for us to continue the relationship with Zimbabwe.”

The minister told Dr Mnangagwa that in June next year Moscow intended to hold a festival of African culture and this resonates well with the First Lady’s programmes back home.

“Next year we are going to participate in the second Russian-African culture – African countries forum that is going to take place in June and we suggested to the ambassadors of African countries to organise the festival of African culture in Moscow and it seems to me that its quite a good initiative to do with African countries.

“We would be happy if you could give the guidelines to support this next year since I am told you are also involved in similar activities and programmes in your country,” he said.

In response, the First Lady said she was charmed by the warm welcome she had been accorded.

“I am grateful for the welcome that I received here together with my delegation. This is not my first time to visit Russia.

“I once came to St Petersburg some time last year and it’s only that the weather when I came wasn’t like this. It’s now cold and it’s good for me to understand the pattern of the weather here,” she said.

Dr Mnangagwa chronicled the history of her foundation and gave an outline of its various works.

“What we have talked about here also touches my office and my foundation. My foundation takes care of the underprivileged, the elderly, those with disabilities, child-headed families and marginalised communities among many other groups.

“Some of the programmes that I do go hand-in-hand with what you do here in terms of cleanliness of cities. I am also the patron of the environment and tourism in my country and cleanliness is mainly associated with mothers so I encourage our people, the women, men and youths, school-going children to participate in the cleanliness of all cities in our country and this has been received so well by the people of Zimbabwe,” she said.

The mother of the nation shed light on her activities to promote culture and traditional dishes in Zimbabwe.

“I am happy to hear that next year you will have the cultural festival. I am also promoting our culture in my own country, from school-going children to educate them how they should behave and how they prepare traditional meals and how to consume them because it’s also health that comes into culture.”

“I think this is a very good direction that you have to take about culture and for you to understand what happens in Africa,” she said.

Dr Mnangagwa spelt out the need for cultural exchange programmes to share glimpses into each other’s culture.

“It is good for our countries to get to understand each other’s culture and I am of the opinion that we should have exchange programmes that our youth come and learn what happens here, your youths also come and learn what happens in our culture,” she said.

Amai Mnangagwa further discussed with the minister on agriculture and other sectors in Zimbabwe.

“We mainly survive on agriculture, mining and tourism. These are part of our backbone. Women and youths are also involved in all these sectors.

“In agriculture we are in all crops – tobacco, cotton, maize and traditional grains. When we talk about traditional grains, we are talking of rapoko, sorghum and millet, that we can process to supplement our basic foods.

“This is what makes Zimbabwe. Also women and youth are involved in those sectors. We have so much that we can work together,” she said.

She highlighted some of the issues Zimbabwe was facing in terms of cleanliness and public hygiene management.

“On the issue of cities, there is adequate need to manage garbage. Therefore, we are in need of refuse collecting trucks because we have a lot of dumpsites and health-wise, not keeping the city clean is not good. If garbage accumulates, there will be poor drainage which poses health hazards and also danger to pedestrians and motorists during the rainy season,” she said.

Dr Mnangagwa said it was the mandate of the older generation to create an enabling environment to empower young children who are the country’s future leaders.

Mr Cheremin said his country stimulated its development in all fields, making it the biggest exporter of agricultural products.

“We have very good results and high efficiency in managing all the skills from how to produce the grains and I know a lot of agricultural companies are using new advanced technologies and how to use fertilisers effectively by checking the soil quality and controlling how much fertilisers should be put into the soil.

“They also have specialised devices that put fertilisers just into the place where you need it. I will speak to some of those companies because some of them are interested in promoting skills outside Russia and. This could be of interest to you so that they partner with your companies that are in fertiliser manufacturing,” he said.

As the Agric4She Patron, the First Lady welcomed the idea and invited the fertiliser manufacturing companies to set up plants in Zimbabwe and partner with already existing companies.

On Angel of Hope Foundation being involved in health issues, Mr Cheremin said Moscow uses artificial intelligence in providing diagnosis to the population, telemedicine and that was useful during the Covid-19 pandemic when people could not visit clinics.

He said he would speak to experts in his country to see how they could interact with their Zimbabwean counterparts to assess what could be useful to the country.

“You mentioned exchange programme for students from your country. By the way, Zimbabwean students are quite active and they participate in a lot of competitions in Russia and we support that.

“We also welcome your idea of cultural exchange programmes. We can also speak about the opportunity to exchange students in the field of municipal management,” he said.

Under the auspices of the Moscow government, he said, there is a university that provides knowledge in municipal areas and there were a lot of African students who graduated from this university and he could speak to the president of the university to invite some Zimbabwean students.

As health ambassador, The First Lady sought to know more about how Moscow manages its polyclinics which are usually the first port of call for women and children seeking medical service provision.

“If I may ask, in Harare we have city health department where we have municipal clinics. What is it like here?”

In response, Mr Cheremin said: “Yes, most polyclinics and clinics are under the responsibility of Moscow government. We also have Federal clinics that belong to different ministries or agencies. Moscow’s mass healthcare is considered one of the best in the world. This is also one of the spheres that we can share experience with Zimbabwe,” he said.

Added Dr Mnangagwa: “Joint cooperation between cities will help our people. I am of the view that joint cooperation in poly clinics will be of great importance.”

She pointed out that Zimbabwe has no tunnels, subways and expressed zeal for that to be brought to Zimbabwe under that cooperation.

Representing the Ministry of Health and Child Care, Ms Venus Mushininga said they were ready to collaborate with Moscow city to learn from their experiences and share expertise in various areas.

“As the Ministry of Health and Child Care, we were part of the meeting and were satisfied with the deliberations that highlighted areas of collaboration that we would be glad to work with Moscow city,” she said.

“Moscow city has been awarded high rankings in how they responded to the Covid-19 Pandemic and as Zimbabwe we are keen to share experiences in this area to strengthen our pandemic preparedness and response.

“We also welcome cooperation in revamping polyclinics to improve health service provision and diagnosis of diseases. Another area that was highlighted was the issue of cooperation to improve waste management. Robust waste management systems create a healthy environment which is critical for a healthy nation. We will carry forward these discussions through the available diplomatic channels for further engagements.”