Finding myself through your voices

For the past two years when I was asked to introduce myself I’d go for the things I wish I could change in our communities like peace, community development and education for all, not who and what I am because there was this continuous inner voice saying, say your name is Rudzanimbilu and you never finish what you started. There are three things that led me to World Pulse, my passion for peace studies, and being a single parent in a community that believes a family is when a man is the head of the house and my failure to run a non profit organization which I started when I was fourteen until 2008. The centre was instrumental in tackling the scourge of illiteracy, poverty and teenage pregnancy using the arts as a solution.

I blamed myself for everything until one morning, a male colleague, younger than I am said women are not suppose to be running this kind of things. It was a wake up call; did I fail because I was a woman? Where were women out there, who have shown the world that women can be leaders too? In a step by step manner I wanted to understand what other women were going through all over the world and I got tired of reading about what the United Nations is doing in developing countries to alleviate poverty. There was an overabundance of works, websites & statistics from both national and international NGO’s seeking to find solutions to women’s challenges but women still remained as sidelines to their voices. And in April this year while I was on a Google spree I found voices of women, screaming out loud for change and most of all taking action.

When an opportunity to apply for the Voices of Our Future came, I was still silent, too embarrassed by my own failure to share because that inner voice kept on saying, you won’t finish, they will see right through you and you won’t be chosen as one of the 30 trainee correspondents. Today as I write, I realize that it doesn’t matter if I’m chosen because I have learned so much, I have a long way to go and this is an opportunity to redirect my focus and do what I’ve always loved to do, to represent them.

I would like to run a free career information and training hub for learners in high schools so that I can contribute in changing the lives of our township communities by giving them access to information and opportunities that pass by everyday because they have no access to the internet and resources to sustain their livelihood. Without the VOF training, support and networking that I have received so far, chances are this vision will remain only in my dreams forever.

I am proud to say my name is Rudzanimbilu and I am learning to finish what I have started and like the SOUL OF WORLD PULSE, I’m empowered so greatly, I AM UNSTOPPABLE.