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Rumbidzayi Kamba

Daphne Machiri Features Reporter
A Zimbabwean charity worker, Rumbidzayi Kamba has been named a Pan African Humanitarian Summit Award recipient for her charity work in community development in the country. In an interview, Kamba said winning the award was an honour to Zimbabwean women and Africa as a whole. She also dedicated the award to women making great strides in social community development.

“I feel so honoured as a Zimbabwean and representing other African women for winning the award. This shows that African women can do better, and we will continue to fight for Pan African advocacy through our collective work in developing our countries. I have come a long way, doing voluntary social work in different communities of Zimbabwe,” she said. Kamba is a director of a local non-government organisation, Zimbabwe Mwana World Wide.

“My work has been a call to me. I do charity work out of love, and with passion of helping less privileged, vulnerable children and the girl child in an endeavour to curb poverty in Zimbabwe. We are compliment government efforts,” she said. Non-governmental organisation, she said, have a role play in developing their countries for better tomorrow. Kamba is a trained teacher passionate about women and girls’ livelihood. Her work, she said, was inspired by the tough conditions she endured as a young woman.

Her work cuts across so many issues that include empowering children, especially through education, rehabilitating vulnerable children, paying school fees for school drop outs, helping sexually exploited girls who end up into drug and alcohol abuse, ending early, marriages and issues to do with child labour.

“We want to continue to improve sanitary hygiene to all the vulnerable females in the country and also to work with various organisation and governments in African in taming sexual reproductive health challenges facing women on the continent,” she said.

“We also want to help increase access to cancer screening and other frequent healthy check-up needs for the women.” Kamba’s organisation is working in Caledonia to install boreholes which aim to improve access to portable water and water for nutritional gardens.

“Boreholes are helpful to this community which has no easy access to water. Most people here use shallow and unprotected wells which pose huge health risks. In addition to this, we are also working closely with the Ministry of Primary and Secondary Education on a schools feeding programme. This programme is helping to fight malnutrition among children in the area,” she said. Kamba has a long track record in community development work. She has been involved in fundraising activities for people living ith disability. This year, she was nominated as the Fundraising National chairperson for Zimbabwe National Paralympics 2017.

“I have been involved in mobilising funds for the 10th edition of the Zimbabwe National Paralympic games 2017. It’s very important to raise funds and this makes it possible to host such big sporting events,” she said. The sporting events are important in the fight against discriminations and exclusion of the disabled. Apart from this, Kamba has also been involved in efforts to secure sanitary wear for girls and improving the conditions of vulnerable children in Caledonia, in the eastern part of Harare.

“Im happy to say that more than 3 000 girls in rural Zimbabwe are benefiting from sanitary wear and this has put Zimbabwe in the limelight in terms of improving the lives of girls,” she said. Her organisation is also involved in various income generating projects which benefit rural women through market linkages as well as micro finance lending and basic project management.

Kamba’s organisation is also involved raising awareness among the youth on the dangers of drugs in Caledonia, Mabvuku and Tafara. Her investigation efforts have led to the arrest drug peddlers in these suburbs. This year in January, Kamba also won the African Woman award organised by the Nigerian-based online magazine TAW. She has also been nominated for the forthcoming CA Humanitarian Achievers to be held later this month in London.