Robert Mukondiwa

Impact

A Man With Vision

Iam mostly fascinated by young people who live their everyday life with a sore desire to make the world a better place. Robert Mukondiwa is a wonderful TV Presenter, Author of The Judas Files, journalist, media anthropologist. Media strategist and Thinker. In an interview, Robert Mukondiwa managed to expound on a lot of issues, as well as respond to many questions we had and this is what he had to say:

I studied media and law amongst a host of other little things that I have had an interest in. My late father was a journalist and that probably shaped my appreciation of media and politics but I had little wish to become a journalist. However, my principle was and is never to try anything that I will not excel at and I think that is why I want to give my all in everything I do. I’m a strong believer in getting things done perfectly which sometimes gets my temper flared when people don’t appreciate the value of time. I’ve always loved and appreciated culture and think anyone can be the best at what they do if they are genuinely passionate about it. In primary school I was one of a handful of black kids in the class post-independence but I never deferred ownership of anything to anyone else by virtue of something as artificial ,race or colour and therefore was the best in English across my stream and an excellent speller. You may be a first speaker of English but it’s not my business to be second best to you. When I got into the media it was as a rookie reporter and I was pretty cocky while I was at it. “when I want to read a good story or book, I write one” is what I used to say. But as time goes by you start to note and appreciate that sometimes the story is greater than your ego and the subject is much bigger than your writing however powerful. I remember the story l pursued of a little boy with cancer called Dexter who had gone blind and was battling to raise money for care in south Africa. He was constantly crying and had to be on morphine I wrote the story and quietly prayed that God would take him and put him out of his misery. A day after the story came out at The Sunday Mail where I was then working, many people started coming together to raise airfare and medical care for Dexter I knelt down before God again and said ‘return my prayer. I don’t want you to take Dexter I want him to be a living testimony blind or not when he turns 21 and we say a country came together to help save a life.” Sadly, after a few minutes I got a call that Dexter had passed on. I remember going to cover his funeral and instead of being the so called professional journalist, I was broken and weeping. That was when I appreciated that I was human and often times just a particle of the world of journalism. That was a turning point in my media life. In a different scenario my father called me and came over to my house ,he told me how he read my stories and loved them. Then he said sometimes l was too angry in my articles. “You can say the same things with humour and banter rather than hate and anger,” he said to me. Ever since then I love to poke fun in my articles and hardly if ever write when I am angry unless if the subject demands anger like a political opinion on rights or something of that kind. I got into TV by accident we had wanted to start a show on health and the first subject was menstrual health management and it came from a point of anger. We had led a our news bulletin with a story of Menstrual Health Day because my team has progressive developmental health reporters who respect women and women’s challenges. Sadly, extremist fundamentalism exists everywhere in the patriarchal system that thinks women’s issues are trivial. Somebody or some people were not happy with discussing such an important issue so we sought partners to help us with a sponsored program which no one would object to. What followed was a series with the Swedish embassy in Zimbabwe. I’m an articulate talker if I do say so myself and Sometimes people ask me how come l am so eloquent and what can they do to achieve the same. Well my mother says I used to talk in my sleep as a kindergarten child so I really had an unfair advantage at practice! I think one of the breakthrough gigs we had was me being thrust in the seat to anchor the long running funeral of the late President Robert Mugabe. He’s a man I will eternally admire for his principles and steadfastness. I was the presenter in the ZTN broadcast which was the best on that subject ever. We formed communities of viewers and I started feeling like I knew the viewers. The comments were respectful and warm and for once Zimbabweans were united with no animosity. No man will ever influence Zimbabwe like he did and perhaps Oliver Mtukudzi not in our lifetime. Covering that funeral changed me. 48

Founder

“I had to change my

life.” Dorris Charlie Banda

Dorris Charlie Banda was born on 22 April 1998 in Harare Zimbabwe. The 22-year-old has always been passionate about writing. Orris was raised in Zimbabwe till she was 8 years her family then migrated to South Africa. Growing up in South Africa had its own challenges on the young writer. “People think that South Africa is all milk and honey but they don’t have any idea of the emotional suffering that a lot of people are going through” Zimbabweans in the diaspora do not have the same opportunities as to local citizens. Dorris had a very low self-esteem when she got to high school it became worse and battled with this for most of her teenage life, accepting and loving herself became so difficult and she hasn’t confided in anyone till this day. Dorris found refuge in watching TV everyday “This kept me away from my thoughts” One day Dorris was watching a Columbian Telenovela when she was inspired by a character who was a News anchor, she knew from this day that she wanted to be a journalist, it was in 2014 Dorris was 2 years away from completing High School. In 2017 Dorris went on to study Journalism and Media studies she knew this was an opportunity to make all her dreams come true, “I was very excited and happy words cannot describe just how excited I was “unfortunately her joy was short lived. In 2018 her second year at college Dorris had to drop out of college because of financial strains at home she became devastated and lost hope of ever being a writer again. It wasn’t easy seeing her friends pursing their dreams. She still didn’t give up on her own dreams Dorris started writing again but this time she became a freelance writer for an online publication she got few articles published this restored her faith and gave her hope for the future. In 2019 Dorris and her parents raised enough for her to go back to school she then enrolled in a Bachelor of Arts in Communication Science She became friends with the internet “I would send over 100 job applications a day but no luck, it was very hard as I had no work experience”.Dorris got to a point of suicidal thoughts and depression She met a young man now her business partner and coach Munyaradzi Dongo through social media, Dongo helped her establish LID Magazine with no money but only her passion and determination. LID Magazine is a bi-monthly online inspiration magazine it draws its focus on reporting inspiration of real life people from all over the globe. LID’s first edition was released in March followed by the second in May 2020 featuring some inspiring individuals like Monalisa Chisango,Raymiel Ivan Ceder,Tapfuma Nzara and many more. The fear of having to drop out of school again is what motivated her to turn her passion into an enterprise. The publication has been doing well as of late it has reached over 10k visits over the past few months. Motivated by all the challenges Dorris has gone through in 2020 she started her own modelling agency and have managed to sign 3 models thus far. Dorris is a young independent woman in the diaspora she wishes to inspire many Zimbabweans in the diaspora and in Zimbabwe to change their lives for the better and she is developing an online community that helps young Zimbabwean girls in the diaspora build self-confidence and appreciating themselves more.

Alfred Kainga

From Mbare to a Global Stage

ALFRED WHEN WE SEE YOU ON TV AND IN FRONT OF THE CROWDS, WE JUST GROW TO LIKE YOU, BUT MOST PEOPLE DON’T REALLY KNOW THE BACKBONE OF YOUR STORY. HOW DID YOU MANAGE TO FLY FROM A THIRD-WORLD COUN

TRY, TO A STAGE IN TEXAS? #So, l was born and raised in Mbare Harare, raised by my mother and the help of my maternal grandparents until the age of 14 when we moved to Crey Borne. I did my primary education in Mbare as well. My upbringing was quite interesting, growing up in the ghetto then having to do a transition when we moved from Mbare and my high school education at Prince Edward was quite an experience. During my primary school holidays, l would say l experienced a normal life just like any other young Zimbabwean in the rural areas. l would go to my grandmother’s rural homestead and l learnt how to plough, milk cattle the rest. l would say we all know how a rural African set up is. Above all, the greatest was waking up at four o’clock in the morning and going to the fields, so in a way it’s safe to say my upbringing was pretty much diverse.

WELL YOU’RE HILARIOUS AND JUST ONE CONVERSATION WITH YOU MAKES EVERYONE FEEL A LOT ALIVE, HOW DO YOU DO IT AND ALSO, THE JOKES YOU PERFORM WHERE DO YOU GET THEM FROM? #It’s a blessing to be gifted with such a gift of making people laugh, l love that moment when l walk into a room and l see gloomy faces and realize it’s my job to put a smile on those faces. God is the one who deserve all the glory for he bestowed it upon me. I actually don’t know where the jokes come from because the moment l start talking everything just falls into place. Sometimes l am even shocked on how l came up with such a joke. One thing l do best is turning all the negative and positive life-time experiences into comedy because there is always a lesson to learn from them.

ALFRED WAS IT ALWAYS EASY FOR YOU IN THE COMEDY INDUSTRY? WHICH CHALLENGES DID YOU

FACE WHEN YOU STARTED? #I started my comedy career right here in America in 2005, going to open mics and l must say those were actually tough competitions with quite a lot of funny and good people. For me being an African guy who was just a beginner in the industry it wasn’t easy. It came about with its own challenges, back then in the days Micheal Blackson was the only black guy l knew who did standup comedy, which was actually a great inspiration for me. So basically, my staff is based on me making fun of myself and if you laugh at me l take that as an authority to make fun of you as well and when l started l always thought l would need an argent to get me booked but realized it’s comedians who uplift each other by means of sharing shows putting each other out there. I did one International comedy show in Philadelphia and that actually opened up a lot of doors for me. Now in the past three years l have gone around twenty countries .At first the biggest challenge was getting into the market and making a name because back then we didn’t have vast social media platforms to reach a large audience.

WOW CONGRATULATIONS ON YOUR RECENT TOUR, WHICH OTHER COUNTRIES HAVE YOU VISITED AND WHAT’S YOUR ADVICE TO YOUNG PEOPLE OUT THERE WHO LOOK UP TO YOU FOR MOTIVATION AND INSPIRATION? #I have done twenty countries, Nigeria a couple of times, South Africa, Uganda my favorite being Zimbabwe of course l love performing home, Dubai, UK, Canada just so many places and l would say it’s a great privileged, l never imagined. Africa is quite a huge continent which l still wish l need to explore every country with the richness of comedy. To upcoming comedians don’t give up stay focused and committed l have been doing comedy for the past fifteen years and l haven’t started yet l am still cracking the surface of comedy. Don’t do comedy for money but do it for the love of it then money will come on its own.

WELL ALFRED YOU HAVE LOST A LOT OF WEIGHT COMPARING WITH YOUR PICTURES FROM LAST YEAR, CAN YOU SHARE WITH US YOUR SECRET AND WHY YOU DECIDED TO TAKE UP ON THIS JOURNEY? #I used to weigh about 285 pounds and l have lost 85 pounds which is pretty amazing. It happened over a period of about a year and a half. l went through a lot of changes, mentally and physically as well. I went through a divorce which l must say wasn’t easy for me but l decided to redefine myself, l stopped eating fatty foods and resorted to a professionally stipulated balanced diet. As a result of this l managed to do away with high blood pressure and diabetes without medicine but just by eating healthy. So, it’s all about eating natural foods that mother nature provides for us which was actually designed for our bodies.

Alfred Kainga 52

Young Poet Reaching For The Stars.

CHASING MY HEART.

Gathering momentum of four pumas, Fighting for my breath at the climax of my gasps like a dog, I am chasing my heart. I am a dog in the manger. I am not dog tired.

In every dream and in every life I am chasing after my heart. Stealing is a crime and that’s why I am chasing you down the alley. You are a mugger. tiptoe! tiptoe! tiptoe into my rib cage you thieved my heart. In my all trials and tribulations with my whole shebang I will always be after you for my heart.

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