People
The Muonde Trust is a network of people working together over the years to contribute to change through deepening community understanding.
Here you will find details on some of those involved:
- The Founders behind the Trust, an idea formalized in 2008 and completed in 2014 among friends who have worked together in Mazvihwa since the mid-1980s.
- The Board Members of the Muonde Trust who have stepped up to guide the institution.
- The local Staff who run the Muonde Trust programs, and research members from the past in the 1990s and 1980s.
- Other local team members and researcher partners in the 2010s
- The Students who are currently receiving bursaries
- Some of the researchers associated with Mazvihwa
- Some of our Volunteers
- And the Advisors to the Friends of Muonde in California
Founders


Dr. K.B. Wilson: was born in Malawi and raised there and in England before coming to Zimbabwe at independence in 1980 as a school teacher at Dadaya, when he had many students from Mazvihwa and first began to visit. Attached to the University of Zimbabwe in the mid-1980s his doctoral research at the University of London was based on field work in Mazvihwa and combined with community development efforts. He abandoned an academic career at the University of Oxford in 1993 to work for the Ford Foundation in Mozambique, and since 2002 has run The Christensen Fund, a San Francisco-based foundation working with indigenous peoples globally to sustain biocultural diversity. He serves as a Board Member of the Muonde Trust and raises funds and provides other logistical support to the Trust in a voluntary capacity through the Friends of Muonde/Earth Island Institute in California. He continues his thirty years of unfunded efforts to undertake writing and analysis for Muonde in partnership with the local action-researchers.
Board Members of Muonde Trust







Staff in Mazvihwa, Present & Past
Current Staff (2015)
The Executive Director is Abraham Mawere Ndhlovu (for Bio see Founders above). Other key staff include:


Ms. Ratidzai Chikudo (Soil and Water Management)


Ms. Shamiso Gwatipedza (Soil and Water Management)
Ms. Lucia Horogodo (Soil and Water Management)

Ms. Colletta Hove (Soil and Water Management)
Ms. Ndakaziva Hove (Soil and Water Management)
Ms. MaiJabulani (Maria Fundu), (Kitchens and Domestic Architecture)
Ms. Tererai Mabweazara (Soil and Water Management)
Mr. Handsome Madyakuseni (Soil and Water Management)
Ms. Melody Malunga (Soil and Water Management)
Ms. Simbisai Makumbirofa, (Kitchens and Domestic Architecture)
Ms. Retina Mapfumo (Soil and Water Management)
Ms. Vaida Maraini (Soil and Water Management)
Ms. Egness Masocha (Soil and Water Management)
Mr. Daniel Mawere (part time, Action Researcher)
Ms. Ustina Mazarire (Soil and Water Management)
Ms. Memory Mhizha (Resettlement Studies)
Mr. Austine Mugiya (Soil and Water Management)
Ms. Christine Mukokwayarira (Resettlement Studies)
Ms. Ruth Munhundagwa (Soil and Water Management)
Ms. Judith Muringi (Soil and Water Management)
Ms. Valising Mutombo (Soil and Water Management)
Mr. Moses Ndhlovu (Digital Program)
Mr. Fidelis Ndumo (Resettlement Studies)
Mr. Philemon Ndumo (Resettlement Studies)
Ms. Nyengeterayi Ngangu (Soil and Water Management)

Ms. Vonai Ngwenya (Soil and Water Management)
Mr. Nehemiah Pasira (Stone Walling Training)
Ms. Guilter Shumba, (Kitchens and Domestic Architecture)



Ms. Sarah Tobaiwa (Soil and Water Management)

Other Members of the Team and Local Partners (2010s)

Obrian Mudyiwenyama of Fine Line Media (left) teaches Moses Ndlovu (Muonde’s lead with digital media) the finer points of editing
Mr. Sabada Chikombeka (late)
Mr. Johnson Madyakuseni (assisting with Zvishavane Water Project)
Mr. Morgan Magwisanya (Mazvihwa community)
Mr. Obrian Mudyiwenyama (Fine Line Media)
Mr. Abumelek Mutsenhure, Shashe Community/Zimbabwe Organic Smallholder Farmers Forum (ZIMSOFF)
Ms. Sindisiwe Ncube, former student Department of History, Midlands State University
Dr. Gerald Mazarire, Department of History, Midlands State University
Mr. Livingstone Muchefa, National Archives of Zimbabwe
Mr. Nelson Mudzingwa, Shashe Agroecology School and ZIMSOFF
Student Bursaries (2014)
Blessed Chikunya (for first year of “A” Level at Muzondo High in Takavarasha)
Maria Chinguo (for second year of “A” Level at Muzondo High in Takavarasha; now awaiting results)
Lodreck Ndumo (for first year of “A” Level at Muzondo High in Takavarasha)
Paula Zvidza (for first year of “A” Level at Muzondo High in Takavarasha)
Mthulisi Phiri (first year at Chinhoyi University, Zimbabwe)
Daniel Mawere (Student Placement with Centre for Applied Social Sciences, University of Zimbabwe; third year at Midlands State University, Zimbabwe)
Members of the Local Team (1990s)

Mr. Davie Chakavanda
Mr. Mathou/Black Chakavanda (late)
Mr. Tavengwa Chifamba
Ms. Farisai Hove
Dr. Billy Mukamuri
Ms. Simbisai Makumbirofa
Mr. Abraham Mawere
Mr. Gift Mubhemi
Mr. Kudakwashe Murudhe
Mr. Cephas Ndhlovu
Ms. Ngonidzashe Ndhlovu
Mr. Philemon Ndumo
Mr. Zephaniah Phiri
Ms. Guilter Shumba
Mr. Robson Shumba
Mr. Emmanuel Sigauke
Ms. Ilene Siziba
Mr. Jacob Zhou (late)
Members of the Local Team (1980s)

Ms. Knowledge Bwoni
Mr. Mathou/Black Chakavanda
Mr. Tavengwa Chifamba
Mr. Oliver Chikamba
Ms. Farisai Hove
Mr. Johnson Madyakuseni
Ms. Simbisai Makumbirofa
Mr. Abraham Mawere
Ms. Irene/Anatolia Masango
Mr. Benius Moyo
Dr. Billy Mukamuri
Mai Faith/Ms. Maureen Mukamuri
Ms. Ngonidzashe Ndhlovu
Mr. Zephaniah Phiri
MaiThandie/Ms. Florence Shumba Wilson
Mr. Robson Shumba
Mr. Jacob Zhou
Some of the Researchers Associated with Mazvihwa
In the 1980s the so-called “University of Mhototi” included (along with its local research team members, and elders such as Mr. Zephaniah Phiri and Mr. C.G. Mukamuri, see above):

Mr. C.G. Mukamuri, headmaster of Mhototi School in 1980, our host with his wife, of Mhototi University and a constant advisor

Mr. Phiri (second from right), the elder on the research team in the 1980s (with the Mhike men exploring for groundwater, 1987)
- Andrea Cornwall – then a high school teacher at Gwavachemayi School who wrote an important 1990 study of women’s own understandings of fertility and contraception before undertaking doctoral research in Nigeria.
- Ian Scoones – then attached to the University of Zimbabwe’s Department of Biological Sciences and researching his 1990 doctorate Livestock Populations and the Household Economy: a case study from Southern Zimbabwe with Imperial College London. Ian has in recent years focused on resettlement issues in adjacent Masvingo Province.
- Bryn Higgs – as a student of Zoology at the University of Oxford wrote a 1987 undergraduate dissertation that demonstrated how indigenous understandings of woodland change explained the dynamic between Acacia and Mopani along the Runde River. He is now writing a doctoral thesis on the International Criminal Court’s role in Uganda at the University of Bradford.
- B.B. Mukamuri now Chair of the Centre for Applied Social Sciences at the University of Zimbabwe, but first as an undergraduate at the University of Zimbabwe doing research in his home area, then as a staffer for ENDA-Zimbabwe and ultimately for his 1995 PhD Thesis at the University of Tampere (Finland) Making sense of social forestry: a political and contextual study of forestry practices in south-central Zimbabwe.
- K.B. Wilson – then attached to the University of Zimbabwe’s Department of Land Management and researching his 1990 doctorate Ecological Dynamics and Human Welfare:
Mr. Madzoke from Murowa in 2010 holds an historic photo kept by his family from the action research of 1986 of elders in his community now mostly passed
a case study of population, health and nutrition from southern Zimbabwe with University College London. His research on environmental history (issues such as indigenous woodland management, traditions of wetland farming, changes in agrobiodiversity and small grain agriculture) contributed to many of the local initiatives in the area in the late 1980s and early 1990s. He supported the local research team in a study of the resilience during the 1992 drought in the era of structural adjustment with funding from Oxfam-UK and has continued to back the local research team since then, with funds and support, including in studies of the land struggles and resettlement process.
Some of the other researchers who connected with the Mazvihwa group in the 1980s included Dr. Michael Drinkwater who worked on the state and rural development policies with the University of East Anglia, Peter Holland who researched a history of drought for his undergraduate degree in Cambridge, Dr. Joanne McGregor who wrote her University of Loughborough doctorate on forestry in neighboring Shurugwe, and Dr. Frank Matose, who was later to work on forestry and land issues,
More recently Dr Josphat Mushongah – then a student at the University of Sussex produced a 2009 doctorate, Rethinking Vulnerability: Livelihood Change In Southern Zimbabwe, 1986-2006
Several graduate students and other scholars from Universities in Zimbabwe and around the world, including the Universities of Helsinki and California are now exploring continuing the research tradition in Mazvihwa in collaboration with the Muonde Trust. In particular it has been a delight to have the historical skills of Dr. Gerald Mazarire of Midlands State University.
Some of Our Volunteers (in addition to our Advisors)
Robert Hickling: a graphic designer and digital technologist from San Francisco who helped introduce the first computers and video-cameras into local hands in Mazvihwa in 2013 (for Muonde Trust and the Gwavachemayi Secondary School) and helped with this web site and much else.
Patience Mlingo: a Zimbabwean living in the California Bay Area, in addition to donating money she has volunteered to assist with Shona-English translation for the website and international materials.
Paul Nash: a traditional drystone waller from Gloucestershire England who in 2014 freely shared with the team building techniques almost identical to those used at Great Zimbabwe and which are now re-establishing themselves across the area for managing livestock and other purposes.
Alice Ndlovu: the first woman from Mazvihwa to earn a Masters degree in Development Studies, she first volunteered for Muonde and then decided to give up her job to come and work with us.
Marc Tognotti and Clever Musonda from the Tikva Grass Roots Empowerment Fund came for a visit but ended up sharing much experience with group dynamics and development.
Robby Zeinstra: a University of California Berkeley agro-ecologist and now environmental history doctoral student at Princeton University who has shared a passion for trees (hedging, horticulture, agro-forestry, symbiotic mushrooms) and much else in 2013 and 2014.