Phiri moves to amplify women’s voices

Standard Style
Multi-talented media personality Patience Phiri (pictured right) has come up with an interactive online project, which is meant to amplify women’s voices in public spaces.

By Style Reporter

Multi-talented media personality Patience Phiri (pictured right) has come up with an interactive online project, which is meant to amplify women’s voices in public spaces.

Titled Queening with the Empress with Patience “Pat” Phiri, the programme is hosted on online platform CITEZW. Previous episodes are also archived on the online video sharing platform Youtube.

Phiri, who is known for her resolute determination to encourage gender equality and equity through a number of innovation projects, is reaching out to many people through her talk show, which is gaining traction even across the borders.

“It’s a show that brings women’s issues to the fore. We look at the highs and lows of women in society,” she said.

With its tagline “Stepping into my queendom”, Phiri, who is famed for yet another innovative project — a play titled Naked Girls Reading — said she convenes the project with the aplomb of a queen.

“Everything is done in a royal way, hence the title Queening with the Empress,” she said.

“Women have always been running the show, be it sending children to school and doing all kinds of jobs. We are only here to amplify their voices,” she said.

For Phiri, Zimbabwe just like any African country is largely patriarchal where male hegemony is normalised while reform is quickly dismissed.

Phiri has hosted people like Busi Bhebhe of Amakhosikazi Media and Kudakwashe Takundwa of Urban Culture where they discussed issues such as the disruption caused by the Covid-19 pandemic, fake news circulation and how life has been changed by the pandemic.

She also hosted Marilyn Sibanda and Thubelihle Ncube from Transparency International Zimbabwe discussing gendered corruption.

On one of her episodes, she invited cultural consultant and author Naison Twala and discussed the role of women in a cultural society.