Lifting as she climbed: a tribute to Inviolatta Moyo Mpuli

Inviolatta Moyo Mpuli, November 2014

Inviolatta Moyo, founder of  the Uluntu Community Foundation in Zimbabwe and a life long community activist and community philanthropist, died after a brief illness on 20 March 2016. Anyone who had met and spent time Inviolatta at GFCF and other meetings over the years, would remember her warm, infectious, giggle – that she often tried to contain by putting a hand over her mouth – as well as her deep sincerity and commitment to people and communities in western Zimbabwe. Even in the most desperate times in Zimbabwe, when hope and opportunity were thin on the ground and outside donors were backing away from the country because it was all a bit “too difficult”, Inviolatta quietly and consistently found ways to reach out and connect with people – particularly women –  around their concerns, abilities and interests in ways that offered some modicum of security or inspiration. “You can always find good people who really do want to help,” Inviolatta said once, reflecting on the very challenging operating environment in which she was working, “in any institution, they are there… You just have to find them and show them how they can do the right thing.” We asked some of Inviolatta’s friends and colleagues to reflect on her memory: 

Writes A. Scott Dupree of Civil Society Transitions, an old friend of Inviolatta’s: 

Amid the turmoil and sadness of Zimbabwe over the last decades, Inviolatta Moyo was a rock of stability and a principled pioneer for community philanthropy in the country and, indeed, for all of us.  She was my sisi (sister), I am proud to say, as we adopted each other in life. 

Along with an inspired group of Zimbabweans, Inviolatta fostered and then led in 1998 the first community foundation in Zimbabwe, the second in Africa. The Community Foundation for the Western Region of Zimbabwe stands as one of the first community foundations in the world of its kind. The donors to the community foundation were 50,000 villagers, who had few funds but big ideas. As members of the Organisation of Rural Associations for Progress in Zimbabwe, these villagers were asking powerful questions about who would be the agents of change.  Why do we wait for others to solve our problems?  Why can’t we be our own donors? 

Building from a local philanthropic tradition, qoqelela, or communal savings, they each gave a Zimbabwean dollar as a “dream” for a better future, in the words of one of the contributors, an elder woman: “not because we expect money from this dream. It is a dream for our grandchildren and our grandchildren’s grandchildren.”

Inviolatta was a determined steward of this dream. She believed deeply that the challenges of education, poverty and water for the region could be addressed by the people themselves. As an educator, she challenged herself to learn about philanthropy and to engage others in this positive vision. She focused the program on providing grants for the needs of community groups, supporting their priorities. She wanted to see that children had access to school, that rural communities had capital to advance economic entrepreneurship and that water was available for agriculture in the perennially parched lands.

In 2008, at the height of her country’s economic collapse – the historically inflated currency ceased to exist in that year and many donors and companies had gone – Inviolatta did not stop. Her response was to work with others to spark a second community foundation, the Uluntu Community Foundation. The organization aims at building sustainable development through partnerships with communities in Zimbabwe.

Inviolatta (C, front) and Scott (L, back) at a 2014 GFCF convening

I will miss Inviolatta. A strong heart, a simple woman and a visionary, she believed in a Zimbabwe where things would be right, where the strength and imagination of people would fuel a future. She and her fellow Zimbabweans have reimagined the community foundation model, firmly planting it in African soil and traditions. It is a legacy that should rightfully inspire an advancing community philanthropy movement across the continent and in the world. While Inviolatta had much left to do; it falls to the rest of us to honour this philanthropic dream working for a healthy world today, and for our grandchildren’s grandchildren. 

And Hope Chigudu of the Zimbabwe Women’s Resource Centre and Network and a GFCF board member, with Claret Madzikanda, Inviolatta’s sister and the new Director of the Uluntu Community Foundation write: 

Inviolatta was a formidable, courageous, quiet and optimistic social entrepreneur. Her work with the Organisation of Rural Associations for Progress (ORAP), Community Foundation for the Western Region of Zimbabwe, and the organization she founded in August 2010, the Uluntu Community Foundation, are all evidence of this. Inviolatta was a vital voice in her family, church and community. She leaves behind a huge gap which hopefully all of the young people she mentored will fill.

Originally a teacher, Inviolatta left the Ministry of Education to join ORAP, at the time, a ground-breaking community development organization which  offered diplomas in grassroots development and NGO management and, subsequently, to found Zimbabwe’s first community foundation (see below). 

In 2010, she started the Uluntu Community Foundation, at a time when the NGO sector in the country was struggling with financial resources (compared with the “robust 80’s” and “breathtaking 90’s”). Despite its own limited resources Inviolatta ensured that the foundation created spaces for others to act meaningfully; it strengthened community cohesion, public dialogue and a movement that believes in nurturing children at an early age.  As a former teacher, she understood and appreciated the value of education in transforming Africa. Today, among many other achievements, Uluntu has supported 100 rural schools in Midlands, Matabeleland North and South provinces, for the construction of classrooms and teacher’s houses. In a region with limited water, Uluntu has supported communities to drill 33 boreholes in three provinces. The organization has supported 200 rural women’s groups as well as ten community based organisations to improve the care environment for children aged between zero and eight years old.

A nutrition garden supported by Uluntu Community Foundation

Working as hard as she did, Inviolatta always held onto her own deep humanity; she had two children of her own, but her house was always full of young people who she supported in various ways (moral support, school fees etc.). Lifting as she climbed; she groomed and mentored many young women including her widowed young sister, Claret.

Inviolatta held on to the fact that “every person matters” as a principle. This was the core of her humanity. In the end, the wear and tear of heart and body that comes with working in a difficult context, constantly having to chase after money and funders, without time to rest and rejuvenate took its toll. Inviolatta’s passing left us all with the responsibility of continuing to walk, sustain and widen the path she paved.

The GFCF will be setting up a fund in Inviolatta’s honour on its JustGiving page. Check back here for more details soon.