ZimRights’ outgoing national director, Dzikamai Bere, has penned an emotional farewell message as he prepares to step down from the helm of Zimbabwe’s oldest indigenous human rights movement in December.
Bere assumed the role in January 2020.
ZimRights first formally announced Bere’s departure on October 26.
“Six years later, I look back, and I am glad I stayed. The journey was amazing,” Bere wrote, while acknowledging the “giants in the shadows.’
Bere said his most significant contribution to ZimRights was not a single visible programme, but the renewal of institutional foundations and a strengthened leadership culture meant to secure the organisation’s long-term sustainability in an increasingly hostile civic environment.
“We have created the software that will make growth, even in a new and hostile environment, inevitable for ZimRights,” he said
Bere is credited with creating new structures including the diaspora chapter, the PWDs Council, the Women’s Council, and ZimRights House in Harare, which he believes will anchor future expansion.
While some staff and members expressed concern over the timing of the transition given shifting donor priorities and shrinking civic space, Bere insisted that ZimRights is ‘in a season of strength.’
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“Others lead first, and others come later. We must celebrate leadership transitions because they are opportunities for renewal,” he wrote
“Other than my marriage, ZimRights was the passionate love of my life. I gave it my all, to the last drop,”
“But now, I must bow out, because my job is done.”
ZimRights is expected to announce its new leadership in due course as the organisation prepares for its next chapter.
