About the Author
Multiglobal Award Winner, Speaker, Trainer, Philanthropist, Innovator, Survivor, Certified Human Rights Defender, Published Author and Poet, Theatre Director, Women, Girls & Gender Consultant, Gender Based Violence Expert, CNN Hero for Protecting the Powerless, Founder of Girl Child Networks, Chief Executive Officer of Girl Child Network Worldwide, Ashoka Fellow and selected as one of global innovators and investors in people, Educationist, Strategist, Yeye Ashiwaju Omoba-Mother of African Princesses, Social Critic and Commentator, Trainer, Mentor, Coach, Mother, Wife and a Woman who embraces all.
Muzvare Betty Makoni (BA Gen, BA Special Hons) is Founder of Girl Child Network Worldwide. Recently she was selected to be in the team of experts for Preventing Sexual Violence Initiative to be officially launched on 30 January 2013 by the UK Foreign Office. She joins the team as a Gender Based Violence expert. In her many high profile titles, millions across the world passionately call her CNN Hero as she was the top in 2009 category for Protecting the Powerless and was honoured by Goodwill Ambassador Nicole Kidman. Recently in UK she was presented with the Prestigious Profile in Courage award for her role to stop FGM and harmful cultural practices in UK and Africa by the UK Black Crown Prosecution Association.
Muzvare Betty Makoni`s experience shaped her to be the advocate and champion for girls rights she is today. Orphaned at age 9, she grew up as one of the most poorest and marginalised African girls in the early 1980s and the education she attained up to degree level was through the Work For Your Education program where she became a child labourer at a middle girls` catholic school in Zimbabwe and it is this experience that shaped her to be the humanitarian she is today. In 1998 she founded the Girl Child Network in her home country and gave her time fundraising in order to build Girls Empowerment Villages that rehabilitated over 70 000 girls sexually abused. Realising what she had done to empower herself as a poor girl , she went back into the poorest areas of Zimbabwe with a leadership and mentorship program that inspired, motivated and empowered over 350 000 girls in school based clubs. Today, Girl Child Network is a model replicated in six African countries with her volunteer time donated towards training, nurturing and supporting many leaders.
Girl Child Empowerment pilot project at a School in Hackney, UK has been a success story with recent launch of UN Day of the girl child. Girl Child Network in Zimbabwe formed in a poor high density suburb classroom in 1998 is now a global network for girls and women. Today many girls’ networks are all over the world. Her model for empowering and inspiring girls is the most replicated model in the world at the moment- whether formally or informally affiliated to Girl Child Network Worldwide
Even though many associate Muzvare Betty Makoni with formation of Girl Child Network only, she has many organisations she formed. She is also founder of two grassroots associations for women, which have been instrumental in building women’s movements including Ray of Hope (a network of domestic violence and rape survivors based in Zimbabwe), Grassroots Organisations Operating Together in Sisterhood (GROOTS Zimbabwe) and an affiliate of GROOTS INTERNATIONAL based in New York, US.
Her life was spent volunteering to shape policies and strategies of other big organisations like Oxfam Novib, UNAIDS and currently she is dedicated to supporting the work of Restored UK as a Trustee to ensure there is a strong global alliance to stop violence against women. Girls round the world have expressed gratitude to Muzvare Betty Makoni as they passionately call her by writing her story and making it a life donation that has inspired and empowered many girls round the world. One of her girls she admires the most Memory Bandera set up Girl Child Network Uganda where she helps many girls.
To her name are 42 global awards from the most prestigious organisations in the world making her most probably the most awarded African woman in the world where with the Decade Global Child Rights hero she became one of the honorary winners alongside President Nelson Mandela. She was selected amongst 150 women who shake the world-News of the World-2011, Top 12 List of African Caribbean Women in UK and Europe-AfroNews 2013, was featured in Metro UK as Woman of Courage -2012. Her work is featured in the major mainstream media around the world making it the most globally covered work of one of the once poorest girls in the world of the 1980s.
Muzvare Betty Makoni might be the highest honoured and awarded African woman in the world with 40 local, regional and global awards for innovation, commitment and passion for her work to protect over 300,000 girls in Zimbabwe. United Nations Red Ribbon award honoured Muzvare Betty Makoni and Girl Child Network as having the most innovative strategy for gender equality. Muzvare Betty Makoni is an Ashoka Fellow and singled out as one of the investors in poor and marginalised women and girls deserving of this life honour as a fellow. News Week named Betty as one of the 150 women who shake the world, alongside US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. An Honorary Decade Child Rights Hero award (2011) that Muzvare Betty Makoni received alongside President Nelson Mandela, who won the award, also shows the impact Muzvare Betty Makoni has made globally.
About the Book
I dream
I stand
I do
I work
I achieve
I thrive
I live
I celebrate
My simple life cycle
Determination can divert you to destiny
Determination can redirect your destination
Determination can bring diversified dreams
Determination can destroy detractors
Determination can distance destruction
Determination can destroy doubt
Never lose sight of determination
Be determined and determine determination
The life journey with poetic verse stories and inspirational quotes has twenty chapters, each giving full dosage of empowerment and inspiration. With this Real People and Real Stories approach, Muzvare Betty Makoni captures the most inspirational and empowering aspects of life and its beauty and positive energy through 21st century poetic short story real life verses. Her greatest achievements and those of others must be celebrated and appreciated always.
Imagine living in a world where there is a permanent rhythm, song and inner peace. Imagine a world where your inner soul, body and mind dance to a continuous, harmonious and melodious poetic song daily. Imagine living in a world where your passion is permanently your purpose. Imagine a world where positive energy flows in your body with a massaging effect for where it is tense. Just imagine a world with no hatred, jealousy, Pull Her Down Syndrome, racism, sexism, discrimination, injustice, abuse or fear. If your imagination can be stretched more, just again imagine a world where you do not give up despite challenges and stumbling blocks. Imagine a world that is empowering and inspiring where you keep moving forward. That world is real and it is possible. In her latest poetry book, Muzvare-Her Royal Highness Princess Betty Makoni creates that world. It is not an imagined world but it is real and the one she lives now. In this poetry book, The Inspiring and Empowering World Of Muzvare Betty Makoni; Poetic Rhythm, Positive Energy, Passion With Purpose, she invites everyone to live in this world as long as they are here on earth.
When Muzvare Betty Makoni got defamed, persecuted and verbally abused through the internet and social media by those who wanted to stop her work, she reflected upon what her best response would be. One natural reaction would have been to get discouraged and give up on her mission and vision or seek to revenge. As they say, the pen is mightier than the sword. She feels strongly that for one to thrive in the 21st century, the only way to go is to create an inspiring and empowering world and transmit the positive energy to everyone around you. Daily someone and somewhere is about to give up their dreams because of negative energy from others.
Being a great poet that she is, this poetic book ignites energy in everyone who will read it. This poetry book transforms victim into leader so that they walk in fullness of their potential. If Christians have spiritual hymn books and bible verses to turn to ignite the spiritual world they live in , then likewise this poetry book is the rhythm and positive energy one needs to turn passion into purpose, sustain it forever so that whether you live longer or shorter on earth, your life finds a meaning.
After her raw and provocative Autobiography, Never Again, not to any woman or girl again which won her the love and support of fellow survivors who are now leaders like herself as well as many round the world, Muzvare Betty Makoni got invited to many speaking events to share her story and that of her charity, Girl Child Network Worldwide. As she went around UK and many countries to speak and inspire everyone, she discovers that women and girls especially from Africa do so much great work on the ground and their leadership and inspiring work at grassroots level though lacking financial support and recognition it is what is changing the world. Somehow due to lack of poetic rhythm in what women and girls are doing, the positive energy and confidence to climb higher dwindles and many times they express anger, less interest and there is lack of support for each other. She starts writing and reciting poems for each and every leader and their inspiring work until everyone stands in ovation for the greatness in each and every woman and girl. If celebrities are up there because of money, then we should all know that there are also celebrities down here because of passion.
Poetry has never been taken into story telling like this. Finally, she is in the global village and walking in the fullness of her potential. She celebrates what she calls life at forty plus and finds her youthful days she lost as a child all coming back as a great celebration of her hard work. The poetry book includes stories of women unsung heroes whose work may not as globally be awarded as hers but she finds herself poetically telling their stories through simple everyday language but in rhythmic verse. If many in the world came with their top lists of who is up there then hers is contained in this book.
This poetry book brings back the appreciative inquiry in the African culture. When someone does something good we clap our hands and recite their totem bringing out their greatness. In a world full of negativity and many women pulling each other down, this poetry book lifts up Princesses, professionals, musicians, event managers, charity workers and ordinary people who have never known they are so high up. Muzvare Betty Makoni recreates an inspiring and empowering world using the many positive stories of grassroots women she interacts with daily. She expresses gratitude and love of what is good. In this book it is all about celebrating victory especially for those brought up in a culture where celebrating one`s achievements is often mistaken to be ‘pride’.
This book has wisdom of the 21st century in it. There are those who are and will be silenced by poverty, disease, abuse, war, oppression, domestic violence, political unrest, threats, unemployment or who may be or are in situations where speaking out is now a taboo; Those of us who can speak, do something or even help out should never tire. Be they men, women, girls or boys, just anyone whose life you can touch, rescue and breathe life into then this book is your moral campus to keep doing whatever you are doing despite challenges. You do not need approval from anyone to do good to any boy, girl, man or woman. Do whatever good you can do to whoever you want and wherever and whenever you see them. For Muzvare Betty Makoni, focus is permanently on empowering and educating girls. What is good is automatically done for anyone, anywhere and anytime as long as they need it. Doing something is better than doing nothing.
The biggest question we must answer in our lives is whether we need people who harm us, say negative things about us, rub off our achievements and want even to stop the work we do to be in our circles? The simple answer is; we don’t need them because they add no value to who we are or want to be or even to the work we do and so we should remove them from our circles. Many women who cry to me for help have been harmed with people they call friends and those they trust the most. Today, I ask you to look around you and see who is in your circle. It does not matter the big smile they give you, but if they cause pain on you emotionally it is time they move out. I experienced the worst in my life but since I know where positive energy is I now have the best around me. Some people are harmful and we do not need them at all.
Writing books is going to be a new culture amongst African women. Organising events to share the stories and celebrating unsung heroes and installing them as Princesses is going to be norm. That was never done at all because we always attacked each other for being weak rather than appreciating each other for being strong. We were quick to point out at negatives instead of pointing at positives. We always thought we had problems we could not solve and yet all answers to those problems are within us. For many years we gathered to cry over being victimised. It is always society that silences us as women to think less about ourselves. We scripted ourselves as being weak. We only pursued anything that did not work because we had no confidence in that which works. We lost many of our inventions and innovations because we never set up our standards to record our history.
From Never again stories founded by Muzvare Betty Makoni, we gather to make it clear that we are not victims but victorious. It is us with the power to say so. For how else can people know about us if our knowledge about ourselves is not shared? What you say to yourself is what you become. What you say to yourself is what generations after you will be. Our life ahead is about our empowering stories. Wherever you see our books please pass on each of them to generations to come for they contain wisdom, knowledge and a good dosage of transforming anyone from victim to leader. We can’t let people think and write about us as failures. We are empowered to do our best and achieve. Here is your 21st century book celebrating one woman at a time and inspiring thousands of girls.
The message in this book to all women and girls is clear: Let’s keep writing our stories and according them the dignity they deserve. Any piece of writing is like a song. The more you sing it the more people dance to it. Musicians have a big following because they keep singing. Let’s keep writing
More about Muzvare Betty Makoni:
www.muzvarebettymakoni.org
www.girlchildnetworkworldwide.org
Book launch 5th April 2014
www.girlchildnetworkworldwide.org/confirmed-special-guests-to-never-again-royal-night-2nd-anniversary-5-april/
