Personal life
Moyo lives in Harare and is the mother of seven children, six sons and a daughter. She is still involved in consultancy work and sits on several media boards. [11]
Mavis Moyo | |
|---|---|
| Born | Mavis Zulu 17 July 1929 Esigodini, Matabeleland, Zimbabwe |
| Nationality | Zimbabwean |
| Occupation(s) | Broadcaster, radio journalist and media worker |
| Known for | Founder in 1985 of the Federation of African Media Women Zimbabwe (FAMWZ) |
Mavis Moyo (born 17 July 1929) is a Zimbabwean broadcaster, formerly of Radio Zimbabwe (ZBC Radio 4), and a founding member in 1985 and chairperson of the Federation of African Media Women Zimbabwe (FAMWZ), now known as Gender and Media Connect. [1] [2] [3] During the 1980s and 1990s, she led a project that became known as Development Through Radio (DTR), across Zimbabwe and the entire Southern Africa region. [1]
She was born as Mavis Zulu on 17 July 1929 [4] in Esigodini ("Essexvale"), a village in Matabeleland, 43 km south-east of Bulawayo, Zimbabwe's second largest city, and grew up there. After her education and working as a teacher for about 12 years, [5] she became involved in media work by chance in 1954 as a temporary replacement at what was then the Federal Broadcasting Corporation (FBC), and she was kept as a part-timer. Initially, this work entailed reading inserts in Ndebele for a women's program called "radio home-craft club" (RHC). [6] Later, a vacancy arose, she applied and got the post of an announcer. [7]
For many years, Moyo was one of very few women broadcasters, black or white, in colonial Zimbabwe. In 1968, she was the first woman to read the news on the Rhodesian Broadcasting Corporation (RBC) African Service. On 4 October 1982, Moyo was appointed to spearhead the establishment of ZBC's Radio 4 dedicated to education and rural development. [8] In more than 50 years in radio, she is credited with pioneering participatory techniques of broadcasting and development through women's programmes such as RHC. She studied radio production at Radio Netherlands Training Center, and in the late 1980s produced the radio drama Changes, scripted by Ama Ata Aidoo, came third in a competition organised by the Union of Radio and Television Organizations in Africa (URTNA), [4] and won the Prix Futura in Germany. [2]
As a broadcaster and an African woman from rural Matabeleland herself, [9] she recognised the power of radio as a means of communication and imparting knowledge among rural communities in Africa and especially for the women, who are often the ones running the farms and working in the rural area when men migrate to cities to find paid jobs. [10] "I realized that [radio] was a powerful tool of communication. As a teacher, I was imparting knowledge to about forty to four hundred people in the class but with radio I could teach the whole country." [11]
Moyo has been instrumental in the formation of the Federation of African Media Women, beginning with a consultative meeting of media women in Lusaka, Zambia, in 1977, with participants from, among other countries, Kenya, Tanzania, Uganda, Zambia, and Zimbabwe. The Zimbabwe Media women launched their own national federation (FAMWZ), when in 1985, they went to the International Women's Conference in Nairobi, Kenya, with a draft of their own constitution at hand. Moyo says since then, FAMWZ's focus has been the development of media women and other women in the urban and rural areas of the country. The increased local and regional activities and networking among African media women led to FAMW-SADC being formed in 1992. [11] In 1988, FAMWZ, with Moyo as chairperson, launched the rural radio listening club project DTR. [4]
In an interview with radio continental drift in 2012, Moyo emphasises how what became known as DTR or Development Through Radio grew from the seed of a collaboration and exchange between urban and rural women, initially between the Jamuranai Women's Club in the Harare township of Highfield and rural women from Seke District south of Harare. [12] This relationship between women across the urban-rural divides developed into an early participatory radio in Africa on an unprecedented scale. It is thanks to the leadership of Moyo, and her persistence and that of her colleagues at ZBC Radio 4, carried further by FAMWZ members through outreach training, as much as the eagerness of the rural women groups themselves, that radio listening clubs could be established all over the country. [13] Support from UNESCO and the Friedrich Ebert Foundation helped to run and maintain the project, [14] which had the backing of the Ministries of Information, Post and Telecommunications, and Community- and Cooperative Development and Women's Affairs. [15]
A 2009 report by the Open Society Initiative, Public Broadcasting in Africa, makes mention of the project under the leadership of FAMWZ as Radio Zimbabwe's best known broadcasting initiative: "The project created radio listening clubs involving rural women who would gather to listen to programs by and about themselves. It was hoped that opinion leaders would emerge from the radio listening clubs who would then relay this development information to others." [16] [17] [18]
After leaving the Zimbabwe Broadcasting Corporation, Moyo worked in support of DTR projects across the Southern African region, such as in South Africa's Kwa-Zulu Natal, Mozambique, Malawi, Namibia and Angola. [19]
Moyo lives in Harare and is the mother of seven children, six sons and a daughter. She is still involved in consultancy work and sits on several media boards. [11]
Throughout the 2012 interview with radio continental drift, Moyo emphasised the segregation of women coming out of a patriarchal society, their exclusion from any posts of influence, particularly from the media. [20] In response, her life's work has been the active call for women to unite: for the media women to unite across specialisation and professions; for the women of Zimbabwe to come together across urban and rural divides; for women across Southern Africa to unite across national differences and join hands and voices for media participation of women across their continent and societies. [21]
In the transcript of an interview with Moyo about the history of FAMWZ, published by Kubatana Network in Harare, she concludes with the statement: "We want to see media women taking their rightful places as managers in the media and establishing their own newspapers, magazines and broadcasting stations and film industries. They have the capacity to do this and also to run media training schools. There is a very strong movement of women who have a desire to tap on these fields." [11]
Harare, formerly known as Salisbury, is the capital and largest city of Zimbabwe. The city proper has an area of 982.3 km2 (378.7 mi2), a population of 1,849,600 as of the 2022 census and an estimated 2,487,209 people in its metropolitan province. The city is situated in north-eastern Zimbabwe in the country's Mashonaland region. Harare is a metropolitan province, which also incorporates the municipalities of Chitungwiza and Epworth. The city sits on a plateau at an elevation of 1,483 metres above sea level, and its climate falls into the subtropical highland category.
Communications in Zimbabwe refers to the communication services available in Zimbabwe.
Bulawayo is the second largest city in Zimbabwe, and the largest city in the country's Matabeleland region. The city's population is disputed; the 2022 census listed it at 665,940, while the Bulawayo City Council claimed it to be about 1.2 million. Bulawayo covers an area of 546 square kilometres in the western part of the country, along the Matsheumhlope River. Along with the capital Harare, Bulawayo is one of two cities in Zimbabwe that are also provinces.
The Zimbabwe Broadcasting Corporation (ZBC) is the state-owned broadcaster in Zimbabwe. It was established as the Rhodesian Broadcasting Corporation (RBC), taking its current name in 1980. Like the RBC before it, the ZBC has been accused of being a government mouthpiece with no editorial independence.
Jonathan Nathaniel Mlevu Moyo is a Zimbabwean politician who served in the government of Zimbabwe as Minister of Higher Education from 2015 to 2017. He was previously Minister of Information and Publicity from 2000 to 2005 and again from 2013 to 2015. He was elected to the House of Assembly of Zimbabwe as an independent candidate in 2005 and 2008. He is considered the core architect of the AIPPA and POSA restrictive legislation.
Operation Murambatsvina, also officially known as Operation Restore Order, was a large-scale Zimbabwean government campaign to forcibly clear slum areas across the country. The campaign started in 2005 and according to United Nations estimates has affected at least 700,000 people directly through loss of their homes or livelihood and thus could have indirectly affected around 2.4 million people. Robert Mugabe and other government officials characterised the operation as a crackdown against illegal housing and commercial activities, and as an effort to reduce the risk of the spread of infectious disease in these areas.
Viomak Violah Makande is a Zimbabwean born philanthropist, protest musician, political activist, freedom of expression and opinion advocate who now lives in Britain.
Supa Collins Mandiwanzira is a Zimbabwean politician and journalist who served as the Minister of Information Communication Technology (2014-2017) and then Minister of Information Communication Technology and Cyber Security in the Cabinet of Zimbabwe from November 2017 to September 2018. His earlier portfolio had been merged with cybersecurity. He is a member of the Zanu-PF political party. He was the founder of the ZiFM Stereo radio station, and the online ZiTV station.
Constantino Guveya Dominic Nyikadzino Chiwenga, is a Zimbabwean politician and former army general currently serving, since 2017, as the First Vice-President of Zimbabwe under President Emmerson Mnangagwa. In August 2020, he added the Health Ministry to his portfolio.
Micheen Barbara Thornycroft, is a Zimbabwean female rower. Born in Harare, she competed at the 2012 Summer Olympics and the 2016 Summer Olympics in the single scull events for the national team.
In November 2017, Zimbabwean president Robert Mugabe was removed as president and party leader of ZANU–PF and was replaced by Emmerson Mnangagwa.
Sibusiso Busi Moyo was a Zimbabwean politician and army Lieutenant general. He was noted for announcing the ousting of Robert Mugabe on national television during the 2017 Zimbabwean coup d'état. He went on to serve as Minister of Foreign Affairs and International Trade in the cabinet of Emmerson Mnangagwa from November 2017 until his death.
Radio Zimbabwe, formerly Radio 2, is a Zimbabwean radio station that broadcasts in 2 widely spoken indigenous Zimbabwean languages, Ndebele and Shona and is owned by the country's national broadcaster.
Power FM is a Zimbabwean state owned urban music radio station that broadcasts nationwide on FM. It was previously known as Radio 3 and later 3FM.
National FM, formerly Radio 4, is a state owned Zimbabwean radio station that broadcasts in 14 indigenous Zimbabwean languages.
ZBC TV, also known as ZTV, is Zimbabwe's public free to air television network that is fully owned and operated by the state broadcaster.
Nyaradzo 'Nyari' Mashayamombe is a Zimbabwean women's and human rights activist and campaigner, a media entrepreneur, and a part-time recording afro-jazz singer and poet. She is the founding executive director of Tag A Life International Trust (TaLI), an advocacy organization that promotes girls' and young women's rights and empowerment in Zimbabwe. Nyari is also the founder and CEO of Identities Media Holdings, a company that produces content that is featured on the only free to air national television station in Zimbabwe and on social media. As a recording artist, Nyari has released three studio albums.
Highlands is an middle income, residential suburb in the east of Harare, best known as the home of the Zimbabwe Broadcasting Corporation, and for its ethnic diversity, history, natural environment and splendid panoramic views of downtown Harare. It is often grouped in the inner east suburbs of Harare such as Eastlea, Highlands, Greendale and Milton Park.
Kudzai Violet Gwara popularly known as KVG is a Zimbabwean radio personality, television and events host as well as brand influencer. She presents 326 Express show on Star FM Zimbabwe.
Karen Mutasa is a Zimbabwean entrepreneur, philanthropist, and venture capitalist. She is the vice president of Restaurant Operators' Association of Zimbabwe and commissioner at the Zimbabwe Sports and Recreation Commission.
