Muwado Community Management
As part of the #MuwadoSADCtour, we are meeting up with storytellers and ordinary people to get their creative journeys and life stories. We are a platform of stories so we shall be sharing some of these from the different countries as we pass through. These are some of the stories shared from the week we spent in Zimbabwe.
A is a new pastor who spends all his days apart from Sunday as a cab driver. Because he is new, he was given a church with a smaller congregation to oversee. It’s a lower-class neighbourhood so collections are not enough to sustain him hence the cab driving. He picked me up in a Mercedes. An older model but still, I wasn’t expecting that. Like other app drivers, that’s where he gets his leads for off-app repeat customers.
B is a university student who had to grow up at a young age. Her father passed on when she was a teenager and her mother moved countries for work, so she had to play parent to her younger brother. They also realised their father had been active elsewhere and it has been interesting discovering and forging bonds with new siblings. African men stay busy. She’s made it this far and is going to have an exhibition of her art soon. The future looks bright.
C is raising her teenage son with the help of her mother. They are both very strong minded and representative of their generations’ stereotypes so there’s the inevitable clash in parenting styles. She is constantly tired, her social life is non-existent and she is bored with her job. She is looking to revive her writing talents and find other things to do that make her feel alive. She has thoughts to share with the world.
D quit her ‘flourishing’ acting career to focus on building her creative agency. Acting wasn’t paying the bills despite her being one of the most recognisable faces and it taking up quite a bit of her time. The business has grown, the bills will never be done and she still doesn’t have enough hours in the day. At least her son is finishing school and that will reduce the burden on her.
E is very frustrated with the seeming regression of the art scene and is giving serious thought to closing down one of her longest-running projects or taking it to another country that will appreciate it more. She undeniably has mad love for her country but the political and economic circumstances are just not favorable.
F is running an online newspaper. Mainstream journalism wasn’t mathing well. It’s more work and longer hours, as it goes with entrepreneurship, but the payoff is better. The business model is still very reliant on him and his connections built over the years which isn’t ideal. He is also doing what he can with his new platform to give the young generations of journalists a leg-up. He’s excited about the possibilities of tapping into a continental audience.
G is sitting on a movie project and wonders if I have ideas on where she can get funding to complete it. This story is universal among filmmakers especially because of the high cost of production. The search for long-term solutions continues across the continent, this SADC tour included. Money and time are the top gatekeepers in the creative economy.
H has lived an action packed life. Movies should be made about her. She’s retired now but was deeply involved in shaping the story of Zimbabwe and chooses to remain optimistic despite the state of affairs over the last couple of years. She’s a realist about age and slowing down but you can constantly feel the fire within her. She still has many great things to do in this world.
I just moved back into the country and house hunting and the cost of living already have him thinking of opportunities out of the country again. He hasn’t unpacked his cases even. The creative pursuits will also have to take a backseat. The window he’d given himself to make it work is closing so he’s going to master something scientific in line with his academic background and be creative on the side. He’s happy with what he was able to accomplish in the writing space but it’s mainly social media clout and not much to show on the ground.
J has a nice paying multi-year contract gig but is seriously thinking about quitting to go full-time creative again. She already has a creative business making African fashion accessories, among other things, and thinks she’ll make it work. She wants to be the richest woman in Africa one day. Advice is given to first get the income streams from the business to match her contract monthly pay before resigning. It’s rough out here for a full-time creative.
K followed his brother to a different part of the country to tap into the tourist economy and make a living off his paintings and sculptures. Then Mugabe did the thing and the art-buying demographic left. The business has never recovered to its full glory so now he works as security, among other things, to supplement sales from his art pieces. He sounds resigned to surviving like this until he can move to another country. It probably won’t be to practice art there but the hope is at least he’ll be able to earn more than he does currently.
These and many more are some of the stories we heard while in Zimbabwe. Bring your stories to Muwado and join us as we monetise African stories. You can also reach out when we are in your country and we have a chat.
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