POPULAR for her debut nine-track album, Vhurai Nzira, which appealed to a wider audience due to the use of various languages such as Shona, English and Ndebele, Lindi Marc (pictured right) is now working on another album.

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His “Donate a Shoe Campaign” was the first of its kind and many were taken aback by this rare, yet life-changing endeavour by the retired police officer.

community builders:with Takemore Mazuruse

His “Donate a Shoe Campaign” was the first of its kind and many were taken aback by this rare, yet life-changing endeavour by the retired police officer.

Working with and through people has helped him appreciate the challenges that communities face and he believes he has lot to give towards community development.

Such is the story of Fagio Zvondai Marowa, the founder and chairman of Tinoda Trust, which spearheaded the much-hyped Donate a Shoe Campaign through which Zimbabweans in-country and abroad have been able to give back to the marginalised in Zimbabwe.

“I was born in the remote area of Uzumba, Mashonaland East on February 4, 1984 and I vividly remember going to school bare-footed and entering those maggot-infested latrines,” Marowa told Standard Style.

“Life was really difficult for me and when God helped me with a source of livelihood, I made a deliberate decision to remember the less privileged and I am glad that to date I have been able to assist many lives.”

Married to Brenda Marowa, the couple is blessed with two children — Emmanuel Believe Anopa Marowa and Ruth Beloved Anopa Marowa.

“My father was a polygamist and having been born in 1918, he was already very old to be the bread winner by the time we grew up,” he said.

“This meant my mother had to play provider and she eventually found the going tough given that I had an older brother and two younger sisters who all looked up to her.”

The trouble with raising a young family meant the young Fagio had to join his mother for piece jobs in order to raise school fees, food and clothes.

“Life was bad and I remember well-wishers, including institutions like Uzumba Orphan Care would come to our assistance,” he said.

“Having random people assisting us awakened my community development resolve and to this day, I strongly feel I have a role to play in alleviating human suffering.”

A graduate of Kaseke Primary and Marembera Secondary schools, which were about 14km away, Marowa and his siblings would walk 28km per day.

“Learning under difficult circumstances affected my concentration and I got three ‘O’ Level subjects in 2001,” he said.

“I then managed to have another sitting and managed to garner six subjects. I am completing a diploma in International Communication Diplomacy and NGO studies at Christian College of Southern Africa.”

Having experienced the agony of being sent back home for failing to pay fees, Marowa then started an initiative to give back to the community.

“In 2008, I started paying fees for less-privileged children in my community. In 2014 we regrouped as Kaseke Old Students and Community Association (KOSCA) and I was elected chairperson, a position I hold to this day,” he said.

“We started some developmental programmes and we would organise prize-giving days for the school.

“As had become tradition, in 2016 we held another prize-giving day and I posted the photos on social media and some people noticed that a good number of the kids who were scooping prizes were going to school bare-footed and they offered to buy shoes for the children.”

The response to the posted barefoot student photos was overwhelming to an extent that they managed to give all the shoes to the kids at Kaseke Primary School, including another neighbouring school. They also moved to Mt Darwin where they donated to less-privileged kids at eight schools.

The drive was then renamed Donate a Shoe Campaign and was registered as Tinoda Trust. To date, the trust has given shoes to children’s homes in Harare and has also covered areas like Hurungwe, Masvingo and Nkayi.

In July 2019, they moved to Mutare and the trust will be covering Midlands province in the near future.

“To me putting on shoes gives one the much-needed confidence which is critical for concentration in class. Rural schools also have pit latrines that are often infested by maggots and other germs that can cause sickness hence shows are important,” Marowa said.

The affable community builder, however, bemoaned the challenges with access to some of the targeted beneficiary communities.

“I am generally happy with the progress we have made with our Donate a Shoe Campaign, but as we made progress I started getting resistance from politicians and I remember at one point a donation of books and shoes was rejected and my heart bled,” he said.

“In 2018 I then decided to contest as a councillor in Uzumba so that I could help my community better and I won.”

A respected community development champion in Uzumba, Marowa has pioneered various developmental projects such as fish-farming, bee-keeping and sports development. He has also managed to help hundreds of people in his ward to get drivers’ licences.

“We are doing the best we can to empower the community and at the moment, 45 community members have just finished the Red Cross community health training with a view to foster community-driven solutions to challenges,” he said.

“I believe a health community is a prosperous community and we wish to reduce the walking distances to the clinics.

“We decided to build four more clinics and the community has already moulded the bricks with 135 out of 900 bags of cement required now in place.”

Marowa is also the managing director of Faggy Networks, which offers consultancy to those who wish to start their business and to date they have registered around 3 000 companies. They also help individuals to regularise their businesses towards entrenching entrepreneurship.

“The future is very bright and I believe God is helping me achieve some of the milestones I never thought I would attain,” he said.

“In spite of my limiting background, I now believe in myself which I think is the greatest ingredient for success.

“I want to encourage the people of Zimbabwe especially young people to be actively involved in decision making initiatives politics included. They must take leadership positions and serve the community.”