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“I Dedicate This Honour To The Girl Child” -Nyaradzo Mashayamombe’s Album Scoops Human Rights Award
After beating popular Afrojazz musician Selmor Mtukudzi to clinch the ZimRights Female Human Rights Defender of the Year award at a function held in Bulawayo last Friday, Afro-jazz sensation Nyaradzo Mashayamombe could not hide her joy.
“I dedicate this honour to the girl child,” she said.
Apart from being the founder and current executive director of Tag-a-Life International Trust (TaLI), an organisation that advocates for the rights of girls and young women, it is her track titled Cry, from her latest album Zvazviri, that earned her the ZimRights recognition.
“Cry is a song that I wrote to create awareness on issues surrounding child rape,” Mashayamombe said.
“It is a song that addresses the circumstances in which girls especially find themselves vulnerable to abuse. It educates communities on the fact that majority of cases of abuse happen around the people the girls know.”
Zvazviri is a 15-track album that touches on various social issues. It includes the song heroine in praise of the hard work mothers perform in the upbringing of their children, some of them very troublesome, but mothers will never tire.
Mashayamombe, who has devoted much of her life to the betterment of the girl child, said Zvazviri was inspired by her experiences as an African woman, as well as the period that she established TaLI.
“This album speaks to women especially of the African descent and strengthens confidence in them as I found my own in everything that makes me,” said Mashayamombe.
“It is about social issues such as women’s rights and protection of girls, good governance and accountability in Africa, gospel, rape and love.”
With two three albums to her name including Nekusingaperi and Zvakasungwa, Mashayamombe said she believed music was a way of amplifying her voice in the advancement of the rights of women.
Currently pursuing a Master of Science in Development Studies degree, Mashayamombe said she hoped one day to be a renowned global human rights activist.
TaLI has been conducting nationwide recruitment and training of human rights defenders to protect the rights of the girl child.
To date, it has assisted more than 100 girls who had been victims of rape and other forms of abuse to access justice. By Everson Mushava. source-newsday
photo-Nyaradzo Mashayamombe