“She Was There Too” – Naomi Nhiwatiwa

A Passionate & Articulate Woman

Naomi Nhiwatiwa is a very articulate and vivacious woman who looks younger than her 39 years and is convinced that her father’s instruction to remember the parable of the ten talents and give back something of the blessings she has received, drives her forward as she takes up her task as one of the country’s first deputy ministers in the ZANU PF government.

She was born in Umtali in 1941. Her parents were peasant farmers. Her father was “very open-minded and receptive to new ideas” and encouraged his daughter in her education. Her brother, Mishek, and her teachers Ben Kanyangarara and his brother John at Inyazura Mission School, gave her “fantastic encouragement” and put both personal and academic “water and fire” into her life’s aspirations.

Her parents were Seventh Day Adventists and so there was a very religious training at home. At Salusia S.D.A. School, she met American teachers who admired them, especially Florence Moline, “a perfectionist” and developed an ambition to see for herself what America was like. After passing through school and a domestic science training course at Asher Institute near Plumtree, her ambition was realised when she left for Lincoln University in the USA in 1963.

She had become very conscious of the nutritional needs of the children at home: “A hungry person cannot learn” she remarks. Working so hard she earned a Worthy Student award and she graduated with a Bachelor of Science degree in Nutrition 31 years later. She moved on to Wayne State University in Detroit, Michigan, where she completed her Master’s Degree in Developmental Psychology. At the University of New York, she continued her studies for a further degree in Counselling Psychology and this required that the student had to have therapy as part of the course. Dr Naomi Nhiwatiwa believes that these therapy sessions over the five years she experienced them, were a very important part of her self-development and gave her a new approach to her goals and her relationships with people.

She pursued her studies for a doctorate in Higher Education but switched to the Department of Communications and finally completed this Doctorate in August 1979. Naomi’s political awareness was sharpened by the influence of two of her professors – Molife Asante and Cecil Blake who almost demanded from her a model solution to the problems of Zimbabwe. She took an active part also in student associations at the committee level.

“The painful process of receiving letters from home once the war was underway led me to campaign for material aid for my country. I wrote articles, demanded radio time to contradict Smith and kept close contact with the politicians arriving from home in the U.S.A.” she said. At the end of her last year at Community College, New York University, she found herself as a professor and a departmental head in Social Science, almost swallowed by the elite community. The temptation to join the moneyed elite and get established was outrageous,” she confesses.

Finally, she made a decision, wrote to the Party and offered her full-time services to the ZANU PF Party. She knew that this could be a catastrophe because she would have to work for no pay. Still, coming back to her father’s words about the ten talents, she threw herself into the election campaign, won her seat in the Manicaland Province and was appointed Deputy Minister of Posts and Telecommunications in Zimbabwe.

Published by The National Federation of Business and Professional Women of Rhodesia to commemorate International Woman’s Year 1975 in association with Sarum Imprint (Pvt) Ltd, P. O. Box 374, Salisbury. (C) Copyright National Federation of Business and Professional Women of Rhodesia on behalf of contributors. Copyright 1976. Book design by Di Deudney. ISBN 0 7974 0167 9 hardback. ISBN 0 7974 0169 5 paperback. Printed by Art Printopac