The Herald

50 years ago

BULAWAYO, 27 March 1967. — In 1949 an army cook sickened by the sight of wounded soldiers, decided to do something for crippled and disabled Africans in civilian life.

Today he is the founder president of the Jairos Jiri Association which cares for 400 disabled people and many more outpatients throughout Rhodesia.

Mr Jiri was born in 1921 at Bikita, near Fort Victoria, the son of a local chief with eight wives. He did not have the opportunity to attend school and eventual went to Bulawayo to look for work.

With no work open to him, Mr Jiri joined the army as a cook. After the war he found a job in Bulawayo and began to look after disabled Africans in his house.

To raise money to support them, he took odd jobs selling newspapers and hawking goods.

In 1949 he approached the district commissioner in Bulawayo with the idea of forming a society.