I am a Zimbabwean/Canadian with a passion for helping others, especially children and women from marginalised communities. Before coming to Canada in April 2001, I taught a poor and dilapidated rural primary school from January, 1993 to April, 2001 when I left the country. The school was so rundown such that the majority of our qualified teachers were always coming and leaving within a short time owing to a lack of teaching and learning resources. This was adversely affecting our pupils academic progress.

Touched by this plight, coupled with my love for children and for helping others, I opted to stay put and instead help mobilise the community to develop the school’s infrastructure. I am glad that this decision to stay, will forever remain the most important and most rewarding I have ever made in my career. For, with funds that I sourced from the International Community and other good-willed people, we managed to tremendously improve our school’s facilities, a move that significantly improved our children’s performances.

The highlight of my career came in 1998 when I sourced a grant of $26,000 USD from the Irish Agency for International Development, to build a 1 x 2 classroom block and a teachers cottage, buy school furniture and water pump and drill a borehole at Tjewondo Primary School. This was when I realised I was cut out for a career in the field of community and humanitarian work.

During the same time period I also managed to source scholarships for over 300 needy children to enable them go to high school, for I strongly believe all children should be given full opportunities to enable them exploit their potentials to the fullest regardless of poverty. For my philosophy has always been, “It is neither a crime nor a sin for a child to be born into a poor family”. I am glad that some of these children are now doctors, teachers, nurses, pharmacists, engineers and mechanics. Yet, these are children who otherwise would not have made it in life owing to poverty.