Zimpapers women trailblazers

Communications Officer.

While Mrs Nyakurerwa-Matinde is an advocate for women empowerment, she believes women should be rewarded for their hard work and perseverance, not just for being women.

Ms Ncube, Editor of Umthunywa, posited.

“More and more women are being given the chance to grow and fulfill their aspirations in all the different divisions of this vast media house. This is evidenced, for example, by the number of females in senior and middle management positions. We have three females heading newspapers which is more than I can say for other media houses. We as women now occupy the spaces that were previously a preserve for our male counterparts and for that Zimpapers deserves a pat on the back. However, this is not to say we are where we should be in terms of women empowerment because a lot still needs to be done as we would want to see a scenario whereby women occupy top management and decision making positions in equal proportions with their male counterparts one day”.

Ms Ncube joined Zimpapers in 2004 as a junior reporter and became one of the first reporters of the reincarnated Umthunywa. In 2007 she was appointed Senior Reporter before being promoted to her current position three years on.

The post of Group Public Relations and Corporate Affairs Manager is held by Ms Beatrice Tonhodzayi, an established communicator with more than 20 years’ experience in media, public relations and corporate communication among other skills.

Ms Tonhodzayi started as a reporter at The Herald before being promoted to Senior Health Reporter. She later joined Southern Africa HIV and Aids Information Dissemination Service (SafAids) as a Programme Officer responsible for media.

During that period, she also became a National Aids Council Board member, serving for a three-year stint. Ms Tonhodzayi joined Star FM in 2012 as Head of News and Current Affairs before she was promoted to her current post.

She holds a Bachelor of Arts in Media Studies, an MBA as well as diplomas in Mass Communication and Public Relations and

Marketing.

Ms Tendai Hildegarde Manzvanzvike, who is the current head of the Zimpapers Knowledge Centre, believes as a media house Zimpapers could not report about major gender developments in other sectors, without looking at what it was doing about it, itself.

“That the company is opening up spaces for women and allowing them to take up key decision-making positions is the expected direction the organisation should take, until parity is achieved. The women getting into these key positions are doing so on merit,” she said.

◆

Read full story on www,sundaymail .co.zw