Vapostori make giant steps in ‘manufacturing’ industry
Kuwadzana Home Industry, a tiny bustling craft area between by Crowbrough and Kuwadzana 4, is slowly morphing into an area worth recognition.
THE area has shrugged off a stereotypical tag of being an ordinary home for junk and sub-standard products.
It has morphed to be a premium hub of durable domestic items and motor vehicle accessories.
With a radius of about 200 metres and a diameter of a kilometre, the area is a host to scores of small to medium business people eking out a living from trading on absolutely everything from luxuriant and glittering wardrobes to very minute kitchen wares such as teaspoons.
The traders, among them 43-yearold Samuel Chikowe, a member of the Johanne Marange Apostolic Church follower, who runs a craft centre.
The craft centre goes by the moniker Top Grade Aluminium Equipments, a start-up which is slowly making giant strides in the neighbourhood.
Customers from as far as Norton and Granary frequent the premise for aluminium products such as pots and tins.
“We sell a wide range of aluminium products which we fashion with our blast furnaces and ovens here,” Chikowe said.
He works on an improvised blast furnace made up of half bricks and scrap metals.
The blast furnace is about one metre high and stands on a sloppy area with all the materials used leaving a lot to be desired.
No reinforcement material was used but mud walls and an uninspiring container used to sublimate the scrap metals.
From this seemingly archaic blast furnace, Mr Chikowe says an estimated 300 pots are manufactured per month.
“But for labour and capital constraints, the centre has great potential to treble its current output levels,” he said.
“At the moment, I am using scrap metals and dumped Dragon cans which have high aluminium content as my raw materials.
“I even struggle to raise money to buy charcoal to burn my raw materials,” the blacksmith said while emptying Dragon drink cans from a 90kg sack.
On how he discovered the high aluminium levels in Dragon cans, Mr Chikowe said this was an open secret among apostolic sect members.
“Initially, I used to rely on scrap metals to fashion these pots until church members told me that the cans were made of pure aluminium, which is strong and durable than scrap metals from the junkyards.”
He said scrap metal can easily corrode when exposed to extreme weather elements.
Armed with a mere Grade Seven certificate and rich native intelligence, Mr Chikowe is raring to go despite the harsh economic conditions in Zimbabwe.
He is, however, not a rarity among the talented and enterprising members of the apostolic sect.
Throughout Zimbabwe, several apostolic followers across the different denominational faiths eke out a living in informal trade and crafts.
The trade, manufacturing of aluminium pots, pans and tins, is synonymous with the various apostolic sects.
According to Daneel, a prominent religious writer, the apostolic sect in Africa is not a solitary denomination but a complex group with differing rituals and practices.
Well-established groups in the endless list include the Johane Marange Apostolic Church, Johane Masowe and the Apostole of Africa under Paul Mwazha.
Another religious writer, Hastings says these leaders share a common vision because they were virtual messianic in authority; nobody in their congregations can challenge what was revealed to them.
Authority came to them directly, and only through personal revelation and the power of the Holy Spirit.
Historian Ranger has also added a very interesting reading of the Vapositori, particularly on their political consciousness and activism that culminated in the birth of independent Zimbabwe in 1980.
“They used the Bible as a tool for the liberation of Africans. As a way of decolonising his followers’ minds, Johanne Marange discouraged them from getting book education.
“It was also a way of sabotaging the British colonial system,” said Ranger.
Commenting on the business acumen exhibited by the apostolic sects, sociologist Sibusisiwe Siphuma said the entrepreneurial history of the Vapositori is legendary and mystical.
“It’s only recent that informal trading in household items such as pots, dishes and metal cans has become fashionable as every Jack and Jill wants to make ends meet. But since time immemorial the trade was a preserve of the Johanne Marange church members. It was their sector and they were competing against each other.” The Herald Review tried to establish why the Johanne Marange members dominate the trade.
This is despite the fact that a majority of their members are illiterate and lack formal business training.
According to an academic paper by the University of Zimbabwe’s department of religion, the Johanne Marange Apostolic Church has over 1,8 million followers in Zimbabwe and across central Africa.
The majority of these congregants are either semi-literate or completely illiterate.
“Apostolic businesses are not a product of conventional business know-how, but are a result of religious lessons which are given to boys at their tender age.
“A man must be innovative, hardworking and strong, we were told growing up.
“By engaging in these informal businesses, we are simply fulfilling the prophecies and life lessons given to us at church,” Paul Mudavanhu, a Johanne Marange youth plying his trade at Mbare bus terminus, told researchers during the survey.
He said despite the fact that the majority of the congregants were illiterate their businesses were robust and continue to thrive in turbulent economic environments.
“Fulfilment of God’s purpose is the backbone on which every business rests,” he added.
Another member of the sect living in Granary Park, identified as VaMarange, weighed in saying it was passion, determination and talent which drive their businesses.
However, some argue poverty and polygamy are the major driving force in the establishment of income generating businesses such as craft centres.
“We are a church that tolerates polygamous marriages and a man can marry as many as he wishes.
“A family can have as many as 40 members and how best can one sustain such a huge family without engaging in piece jobs and selling of kitchen wares?” Moses, a Johanne Marange sect member asked rhetorically.
“Necessity is the mother of invention and in our case poverty pushes our members into informal trade.”
Genesis of the Johanne Marange Apostolic Church
The birth and expansion of the Johanne Marange Apostolic Church into a dynamic denomination is credited to the charismatic leadership of its founder Muchabaya Ngomberume.
Ngomberume was born in 1912 near Bondwe Mountains in Marange communal areas in Manicaland.
In his adulthood, Ngomberume sojourned in the bushes and returned announcing a series of visions and encounters with Jesus Christ calling him to be a Holy Spirit-guided itinerant preacher and establish a new African church, oral tradition and church sources say.
The church has its headquarters in Bocha area in Manicaland and Noah Taguta is the head of the church and is regarded as a saint.
It has fundamental rules which must be adhered to without fail.
Our sister paper, The Sunday Mail, once reported that an apostolic shrine is a holy city where everyone has to enter bare-footed and any food item contain- ing yeast including sweets is forbidden.
The paper added that women wearing skimpy dresses and trousers are not allowed access into the city.
Those not donning white garments must be clad in dignified dresses or skirts with their heads covered in veil-like cloth.
The church is also famous for its ardent approach to the use of African methods of healing and education with much emphasis on local knowledge systems rather than Western lifestyles.
It is understood that the church used to discourage its members from visiting hospitals because it has its own indigenous health facilities which provide treatment for chronic diseases such as malaria, cholera and dysentery.
According to media reports, some members claim to possess healing powers.
A Johanne Marange faith healer, Thomas Mashava, who operates a healing shrine on the confluence of Mupudzi and Odzi rivers in Dzingirai Village, 40 kilometres south-west of Mutare, claims to treat malaria and several other diseases.
He forces his “patients” to drink five litres of holy water in one sitting, an exercise that induces vomiting thereby cleaning the upper digestive system.
“After taking a certain amount of water, the patient will instantly pop, clearing the whole digestive system,” Mashava said.