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Lifestyle Writer
Fashion designer Yvonne Gambe Ndava has joined the Covid-19 fight and has assisted various people in this challenging time of the raging pandemic.

Through her Yvonne Yvette brand, the designer has been able to raise more than £100 from her base in the UK to assist affected families.

She started the fight against coronavirus by designing face masks and went on to raise funds for affected people.

“The first thing I did was to create face masks before many people embraced the idea and before the Government recommended them for the public. I have a lot of friends and family who are frontliners working in Covid-19 affected hospitals. So, as an individual I wanted to be part of the process to help combat the pandemic so I came up with the idea of masks to help reduce the spread of the virus within the community,” said Yvonne

“As a business, you have to be socially responsible and give back to the community. I decided to hand make 30 wash bags for nurses and donated them to Kettering General Hospital. Frontliners have risked their lives for us so I donated the bags as a thank you gift.”

From the mask donations Yvonne went on to get hampers that she donated to families in need.

“In March I donated food hampers to five families through a foundation called ZIMROOTS. It was a good move that benefited the families and they were happy to receive the donations.”

Her fundraising programme continued with a sponsored run that brought in more funds.

“In the last couple of weeks I did a sponsored run(30km) to raise funds to buy food hampers to feed the less fortunate families who have been affected by coronavirus and the current lockdown.

“I have so far raised a total £1015 and from my calculations, this enough to buy basic food hampers for about 65 families.”

The fashion designer said she is happy to give back to the community in Zimbabwe and in the UK. She previously did fundraising projects for people that were affected by Cyclone Idai in the country.

Yvonne is well known for her fashion brand that has helped her to win various awards in the industry.

“Yvonne Yvette brand was started as a hobby in 2015 when I was working full time in banking. I continued designing till 2017 when I left my banking career to go into full time fashion designing. I have won five awards since 2015,” she said.

She got Personality of the Year award at the Black African Women Rock (BAWR) in 2015, Best Fashion Designer of the Year award in North West England in 2016 and was voted Female Fashion Designer of the Year at HUB Magazine Creativity Awards among other accolades.

Yvonne did her primary school education at Warren Park Primary and went to Nyadire Secondary School before doing a diploma in Business Studies at Dunstable College and attaining a BA honours degree in Accounting and Business Information Systems at Sheffield Hallam University.