From childhood, Ratidzo Mutangadura found her voice and is today using same to help women and girls in Zimbabwe discover themselves and grow beyond the things that seeks to keep them down. In this interview with Project Inspire Africa, Ratidzo shares about her works and its impact in Zimbabwean communities.
Can we meet you?
My name is Ratidzo Mutangadura, a 23-year-old Zimbabwean. I love watching or reading history documentaries and keeping in touch with the reproductive issues.
Tell us briefly your childhood experience.
I grew up in Harare, Zimbabwe and had an upbringing of great diversity in an environment that had aspects of both traditional and non-traditional African perspectives. I was raised with the freedom to question the status quo, agree or disagree even at home, however in a respectful manner. Growing up I realized that this was not the case for most young people, particularly women. Regardless there were still circumstances outside my relatively liberal immediate environment where having an alternative opinion was not an option. This was not the kind of world I wanted and look forward to a time where I can be instrumental in creating a different narrative. Leveraging on my experience and with the support of the people around, myself and a few friends came together to create a platform for the voice of women to be heard and this is what gave birth to our Nonprofit organization, Chengetai.
What’s your educational background?
I attended Bishopslea Preparartory School for Girls for my primary school education before procedding to Chisipite Secondary School for Girls and Peterhouse Group of Schools for my secondary school education. I am currently a final year student of the College of Medicine at the University of Malawi. I have also obtained the following certifications:
• Verified certificate of achievement in PH557x: Lessons From Ebola: Preventing the Next Pandemic with HarvardX
• Completion of the course COVID -19: Tackling the Novel Coronavirus with the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine and UK Public Health Rapid Support Team
• Qualified SCORA (Standing Committee on Sexual and Reproductive Health and Rights including HIV/AIDS trainer).
What are your contributions towards making your country a better place?
I am the co-founder/chairman of Chengetai,a nonprofit organization in Zimbabwe. We work with young girls and women to understand their pivotal roles in society and their value through empowering them and bringing dignity to the natural phenomena of menstruation that has been made taboo in our cultures by the patriarchal system that has for centuries put women in a box and will continue to until we choose to contribute to changing the narrative
Chengetai is a non-governmental organization that seeks to increase ease of access to sanitary wear to young girls in Zimbabwe. Our programmes revolves around women empowerment, menstrual health and advocacy and production of reusable sanitary pads. Our goal is to be a unifying voice in the fight against period poverty and we have explored social media and the internet to help us meet this goal.
What steps did you take to bring your vision to fruition?
Chengetai was founded in 2019 by a group of young men and women who wanted to contribute positively to the society in a meaningful and sustainable way. Our motto is ‘Chirere Mangwana Chigozokurerawo’ which loosely translated is ‘Nurture a Child Today and Tomorrow She Will Nurture a Nation’. With the aim of upholding our core agenda as is echoed in our motto, we came together from different educational backgrounds and degree programmes bringing forth a variety of skill sets that are at our disposal. With this we were able to come together and build a framework that was tailored for our setting by the people, for the people which is what we have stood by in order to keep the reasoning behind the work we do as the focus of and not get distracted from the goal which is to assist the women of our society with all issues concerning menstruation.
Our social media platforms have served as a means to keep us afloat particularly during the COVID-19 pandemic. We have the incredible support of our ambassadors and the community at large who keep the conversations going amongst the people. We have been able to have 7 face to face outreaches, 3 online events, 1 fundrasing event and afew partnerships that have allowed us to etch closer and closer to our goal of eradicating period poverty
What have been your achievements?
• June 2019 - Fundraising Mother Daughter Tea – 40 attendees and adequate funds raised to carry out the following three outreaches that covered 650 people
• July 2021 - St Vincent Outreach – Reach of 393 – Highschool age girls
• December 2019 – Liberty Child Orphanage – Reach of 29 women in the Epworth community
• March 2020 – Seventh Day Adventist Teaching session – 80 women of the church
• May 2020 – Partnership with Ignite Youth Organisation Online Teaching Session – 198 Zimbabweans on the teaching platform
• June 2020 – We donated of 130 Hand made sanitary pads to the Ignite Youth Organisation 400 pad project
• September 2020 – Partnership with Praise Foundation for an online session on hand made sanitary wear using our YouTube step-by-step tutorial – 191 attendees
• December 2020 – Partnership with Proverbs 31 at the Good Hope Community and a reach of 31 young girls and women
• April 2021 – Partnership with Mandara SDA Church and Pundutso Youth Guidance where 100 girls were reached.
What motivated you to do what you are doing?
With a reported estimated 70% and likely more Zimbabwean households unable to afford a sustainable stream of sanitary wear, we thought that interventions could be put in place to assist the many women. At Chengetai, passionate youths have come together to destigmatize the concept of menstruation and encourage women to learn how to care for themselves during their period through innovation and community support.
What has been your major challenge since you began your nonprofit?
The COVID-19 pandemic posed a major challenge to us. As an organization that initially started with face-to- face events for fundraising and teaching sessions, we realized that our work could not come to a halt due to the pandemic. We devoted this time to creating online means to teach communities from our remote locations about sanitary wears. This proved to be a success as many communities and partnerships have continued to be able to go our YouTube channel to learn how to make the handmade pads and have access to our Frequently Asked Questions Answers video where some of their concerns or questions were addressed.
How have you been able to raise money to implement your ideas?
The funds for our work have been raised through our fundraising events and generous donations from organisations such as SlayByFaey and other private donors.
Could you share with us one or two experience(s) you have had in the course of your campaign that has impacted on you?
All of our outreaches have brought about experiences concerning challenges about menstruation. One that definitely stands out is of a young lady aged 15 years talking about lack of access to sanitary wear in the community and how ‘her friends’ had resorted to being in transactional relationships with older men to acquire what they deemed ‘luxuries,’ such as pads. When we were having this conversation, my heart crumbled as I tried to maintain composure in order to understand the extents young women are having to go in order to obtain sanitary wears while having the nagging feeling that the young woman was not talking about ‘a friend,’ but indeed herself.
What are your prospects in the next 5 or 10 years?
Chengetai aims to increase reach beyond the Shona and Ndebele speaking communities by translating more of our information into more Zimbabwean languages and beyond Zimbabwean borders.
We also plan to increase the variety of sanitary wears we teach young women how to make; as well as increasing Menstrual Hygiene Management Knowledge across board as we include men in the conversation.
What do you think is the major cause of unemployment in Africa, and how can we get over this?
The major cause of unemployment in Africa is that our education systems focus on training students to acquire skills to work for someone else as opposed to teaching them how to acquire skills targeted at innovation. This in turn produces a population in search of job opportunities instead of innovating to create one.
If you had an opportunity to speak to presidents in Africa, what would be your message.
Young Africans deserve opportunities to speak out and incorporate modern ideals into the systems that have already been built in Africa. This way we are able to move along with the rest of world towards great development while maintaining the authenticity of being ‘Children of the Soil.’
Thank you for sharing your story with us and we do pray that many will be inspired as they read.
It is my pleasure.
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