“Gwanda is known for high poverty levels, it’s an area that is affected by climate change and challenges related directly to this. 

My feeling about reading is that it is the only vehicle that can drive empowerment in communities. If communities are well informed and they have information through reading, they can then be engaged in the advocacy issues over which they can have influence.  They can hold decision makers and duty bearers to account.” 

When you are knowledgeable you can then use that knowledge. You’re empowered in terms of critical thinking. There’s a quotation I used with my students when I was a teacher, ‘a mind stretched by ideas never returns to its original position’.  

I am motivated by the drive to create a positive change in Matabele Land South community. What motivates me is that I am operating in the community where I come from, I’m like their child. So I have this positive desire to bring change and I want to leave a mark when I am done. I want to be a role model because I always tell people, ‘I learned in a rural school and today I’m a director. I was a teacher and from teaching I moved into the nonprofit sector and I’m now leading that organisation, because I read and I improved myself.’ I want to inspire them. 

I feel I’ve made some positive impact already. I grown the geographic footprint of the organisation into Beit Bridge and Mzingwane districts and I’ve increased the number of schools that are receiving books.   

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Recently I went to Sweden to look at the libraries there. I got a lot of ideas around the library, which I’m going to implement. One of them is that they should provide free Internet service. I believe this can also draw in a lot of users into the library, so it can increase library usage.  If we are able to provide a meeting space for the youthful population, and a cafe space, they will be interested in coming into the library. 

The library should have different spaces for different age groups. So there’s space for the youthful population where they can meet and there’s space for the adults where they can read, research, or read for relaxation and then there’s space for children. So if our community libraries adopt this, we’ll see an increase in terms of readership and library usage. 

As an organisation we are collaborating with the Family Planning Council to work in all the 10 youth centres in Zimbabwe. We are focusing on reading, targeting those young people that dropped out of school, maybe due to pregnancy, so that they can go to the youth centres and access our books and at the same time, they are taught about their sexual reproductive rights and other areas in the youth centres.  

Book Aid International as a partner has made a significant impact in ENML’s growth and in 2024 through their support we managed to have a 50% growth in our programs.  I would like to see each and every rural school in Matabeleland South Province receive books from Book Aid International”.  

All photos (c) ENML