African women’s selfless service to community and society
Isabella Matambanadzo recently shared with Kubatana a very moving tribute to Susan Zvinoira, the energy behind Zimbabwe Widows Orphan Trust.
Laughter through her tears: A Tribute to Susan Zvinoira
By Isabella MatambanadzoAlthough Susan Zvinoira dedicated both her heart and home to sharing what she had, and what she knew, with others like her; disposed black African widows in Zimbabwe and beyond, you will not find her name among those of the world’s greatest philanthropists of the 21st century. In fact, in spite of all the volunteerism through giving, caring and sharing that black African women do on the continent, they do not make the grade when it comes to official recognition related to selfless service to community and society.
For nearly two decades, Susan’s home at number 114 Eastern Road in Greendale served as the only place country wide for widows to lay down their very heavy burdens. “Sometimes the widows come here with just the clothing on their backs,” she once said, speaking of her work. “We do not have much”, “We sleep on the floor in the lounge and in winter we boil water and make hot water bottles from old plastic bottles to keep warm,” with a mischievous glimmer of pride that was her hallmark.
A woman of immeasurable sensibility and bountiful love, Susan put to good use every scrap of energy she had in both her spirit and soul. “We have a garden and that is where we grow our food. Our home is rich, not with money but with bees. So we have set up a honey-making project. We process and package honey and sell it by the bottle. That is one of the ways we make our income. We are now starting to get orders from supermarket chains and that is really helpful. We then use the by-products to make candles, which we also sell. Our garden is also a source of income. We grow and sell vegetables. Our soil is rich but we need more space to grow more food so that we can make a real profit. At the moment we have enough to fill our stomachs. Water is also a problem. We are trying to think of ways to sink a borehole”.
Her motivation and culture of sisterly support was perhaps borne out of the need she saw around her as it was her personal experience: “I take in other women who like me are widows”, she once explained. “The widows have absolutely nothing. They are bereaved, their property has been grabbed by the in-laws, sometimes even by their sons. Their morale is low and they have no resources so they cannot get legal support. Lawyers are very expensive”.
Just how deep her fabulous reservoir of positivity ran, can only be truly understood by seeking out and listening to those she worked with and for. At her graveside at Greendale cemetery this April, widow after widow spoke glowingly of her love, her affection and her refusal to give in to wretchedness and adversity. Their eulogies paid tribute to a woman who never turned any widow, and if she had them, her children away. Even when it was impossible to imagine just how many more women could squeeze into the lounge, she found a way.
“I hope that one day we can build a proper shelter and have the full facilities that we need so that the widows can live a little more comfortably”, she said considering always how to turn a negative experience into a pleasant one.
As we pay modest tribute to a true Sheroine of our times, we are starkly reminded of the just how much women’s oppression and inequality persist in Zimbabwean society, even in the face of legislative and policy progress.
Her own words, spoken back in 2004, offered then, as they do today a crystal clear analysis of the root causes of women’s subjugation: “The problems that widows face in Zimbabwe stem from our practice of dowry, the paying of cows or money to the bride’s family. This leaves a woman in this country with a feeling that she is the husband’s property. When the husband dies the family, because they may have contributed in one way or another to the dowry directly or to the education of the man, will feel they own her so they want to take her over as a wife. They take her as an asset. This is because of Zimbabwe’s multiple marriage laws and practice. You will find that a husband has a civil marriage with one woman, and a customary one with another, he may even have children with a girlfriend. When he dies, all these women are left in a web that becomes an inheritance dispute, especially with the family of the deceased. In Zimbabwe today many widows do not have the right to withdraw money from the account of their deceased husband. Some widows do not know where he was saving the money. You can starve in your home with a cheque book in your hands”.
Known to many through the respectful and endearing title of Amai Zvinoira, Susan didn’t wear the dejection of the bad cards life had dealt her with heaviness. She always put her very best foot, even if dressed in shoes worn down from daily walks to the high court, forward, and kept alive the promise of a better day. “I am not a lawyer. I was exposed to the law by sitting in the courtroom and listening, reading about it and I really learned on the job”. Never one to be daunted by bureaucracy, she approached The Master of the High Court for support. “Mr Nyatanga has been very helpful. He has said that we are able to get assistance when we go to the courts. Every Tuesday and Thursday we receive a welcoming reception. We have even started to call them ‘widows days’. I am not sure what we would have done without his understanding and assistance”. And there again was another admirable trait that Susan had, she always recognized the remarkable support of those people who made the lives of widows and orphans a little easier.
ZWOT’s realization of the impact of HIV and AIDS on the lives on widows resulted in the growth of the organization, beyond Susan’s initial vision. “The effects of HIV and AIDS on the lives of widows are enormous. We do not test the women who come here. We provide a supportive environment for them to make a choice about whether they want to be tested or not. We managed to negotiate for HIV positive women to join support groups and programmes that are providing women with treatment. We want women to be as healthy and as strong as is possible”.
At a conference organized by the United Nations Food and Agricultural Programme (UNFAO) and supported by the sister agency UNIFEM, the United Nations Women’s Fund, among other key civil society and government departments in Zimbabwe on the importance of securing tenure of property for women in their own names in 2004, she told some of her life’s story and the founding of her institution. “We were five friends and we were talking about widowhood, how life had changed. I was also a widow who was stressed up. I used to pray. I would cry myself to sleep because of grief. One day when I was sleeping I dreamt of a group of women all dressed in white and they were sobbing because of the pain of widowhood. A voice said, “You can help, you will be trained, you will be provided”.
It was a voice that she said she avoided for many years. A veritable entrepreneur, she had set up a no nonsense hardware store to ensure she had a purse of her own. “I kept dodging that issue. I really didn’t want anything else. But this voice kept bothering me and here we are today.” A perpetual optimist, Susan and the members of Zimbabwe Widows and Orphans Trust, ZWOT insisted that the conference host a fashion show where the widows would be models. They made light of their hard experiences, modeling to the song Neria by award winning Zimbabwean musician Oliver Mutukudzi.
“Complicated problems arise out of death. Widows often come to us looking for legal assistance, mostly to get their property back. We start by getting as much information as we can from the widow about her marriage, how she was married be it through civil law or customary law, and so on. In some cases the widows do not have any official marriage certificates and we have to go to the government offices to look for records,” Susan explained.
“Sometimes we are lucky and find records, in other cases we have to look for witnesses who were there when the customary marriage took place. But in the worst cases we even have to try and secure birth and identity documents for the widow and assist her in getting a death certificate for her deceased husband where she does not have one. Once we have the information that we require, we then determine which route is best to follow. Negotiations with the family are sometimes successful. But where they fail to reach an agreement, matters can end up with the police or in court”, she said.
It was Susan Zvinoira’s dream to build a special shelter in Zimbabwe for dispossessed widows. ” This shelter would be somewhere where they are at peace and do not have the stress of being destitute. I am not sure how we can get donations of clothing so that they have at least a change of dress. Especially for the days we have to go to court”.
Faced daily with the injustices of sexist practices that make Zimbabwe a society in which many women are denied their rights in both the public and private spheres of their lives, you would think Susan would give up. A stalwart to the very end, she saw the importance of women having a purse of their own. “Above all we teach women to get back onto their feet and start looking for opportunities to make an independent income and manage their resources. Most of the women here were used to being looked after. They were not breadwinners, so this is a new direction for them, counting their own money and planning their own business ventures”.
Susan she lived her hard days by hope and positivity. “Life was bleak but now we have gone from tears to laughter. I can say I have thousands of grandchildren. We even had a baby born here in our living room. I have many thousands of daughters. Widows are suffering in Zimbabwe. I look forward to a day when the people of Zimbabwe will then begin to respect their widows”.