The Art of Staying Engaged

Thank you very much. Hello, everybody. Obviously, I've been here before. And the last time I was here, I had the chance to share with you about the life of young Chido. The young girl who grew up in a village in Marange. The young girl who became an orphan and had to learn to become the head of a household at the age of seven years old. Taking care of my grandmother, who was more than a hundred years old. A younger brother, who was five years old. And what drove me then was that my mother had passed away. I felt let down. And I said, well, I have two people who need someone to take care of them. I'm going to do it. And so I did. I was out of school when I was nine. I was going to be married off when I was ten. And the reason for that was that I was so I could have food on my plate was so I could have food on my plate. When I refused to marry when I was ten, the people closest to me at the time, who had brought me this offer, said, we gave you the help that we could give you. You didn't take it. And from now on, you are on your own. But I was not on my own. I was with my grandmother and with my brother. At 11 years old, I discovered mushrooms. And with mushrooms, I set out on a journey to actually change my life. With that new knowledge, I was able to come here in 2012, where I said, I am going to create an organization that is going to help other young girls like me and all communities to be able to provide for their own food. So I went and I created the future of hope as I promised that I would. With the future of hope, I'm standing here again today. And I hope that by sharing what I have done and what I still plan to do with the future of hope, I can show you all a little bit about what is my art of staying engaged. When you look, of course, behind of what makes the future of hope, it's, of course, my story with mushrooms and my love for mushrooms. And my love for mushrooms actually stems from my grandmother. But we will get to that later. When I created the organization, what I really wanted to do was really to create a movement of people who stand with me and work together to change a situation that I almost became a victim of. Coming to MAD and hearing that the title for this year was building to last. Being African, yesterday being Africa Day, I cannot possibly think about building to last without thinking about some of the values, actually all of the values of Ubuntu. Ubuntu is an African philosophy that says, I am because we are. Or in my Shona language, it's put simply, it's put simply, it's put simply, what that means is that a person is because of other people. That is the foundation of everything that we do. When we forget that we are people, we are persons that we are because of the others, we cannot possibly build build to last. When we are people, we cannot build to last. When we pursue only our dream and forget to take everybody with us. We cannot possibly build to last. Building to last is not only about the future. Building to last is also about what is happening right now. It is what is happening on the other side of the world. It is what is happening in the next community. And if we are people, we cannot build to last. And if we make the mistake of thinking that it is only the future. We will continue to have a very shaky foundation. And so, if we want to build something that lasts, if we want to go far, we have to go together. And that's another African proverb which is rooted in that spirit of Ubuntu. So, I created the future. So, I created the future of Ubuntu. So, I created the future of Ubuntu. So, I created the future of Ubuntu. And for me, the mission was very simple. I want to give young girls, that was my first target, the tools that they need so that they don't have to marry at the age of 10 to get food on the plate. Realizing that my life was going to be altered around food on the plate. I thought to myself, this has to be a critical thing that I work to resolve. When I recount everything that happened to me, it was also easy for me to say, well, after everything that I've gone through, oh, poor me, the weepy girl that you saw before. Oh, I can't possibly do. Oh, I can't possibly do anything. Oh, I was out of school when I was eight. I can't be anything more. And for me, what is important is that when we think about the other, when we think about going together, we also think about the other as a very able other. one that we only need to activate so they can stand up for themselves. And for me, my vision is to create a world without poverty, a world without abuse, but most importantly, without self-pity and playing the victim of everything that is happening in our world. I think we need to get to a point where we make it our priority to say that it's our responsibility to create the world that we want. And when I work in the communities where I work, my goal is to help everybody to reach their full potential, to be able to stand up just like I did, and to do something for themselves at the same time for their community. Since I created the Future of Hope Foundation, I started in Zimbabwe. Today, I stand here having reached more than 10,000 households in Zimbabwe. And if you think, how did this start? At 11, as one of 15 girls, we went to a one-week training. In that one-week training, I had never heard about mushroom farming. My only experiences of mushrooms were when I went foraging for mushrooms with my grandmother, who was not able to see anymore. So I would sit her under a tree, I run around, I collect different types of mushrooms, I bring them to her by smelling them. She would tell me which ones were poisonous, which ones were not. She would tell me stories about the gods of the forest and how I have to interact with the forest in such a way that shows respect for the gods of the forest. How I should harvest a mushroom. How I should treat a mushroom that I'm not able to eat. And because of these stories, when I stepped into the laboratory for the first time at the age of 11, having done only five grades of primary school, I was able to look at the science explanations they were giving and break it down into the language of my grandmother and see actually, ah, that's what she meant with this. And that is a foundation that my grandmother put for me that allowed me to have the curiosity, but also to understand complex things, but by telling me simple stories about gods of the forest. I have worked today in Mozambique. Two years ago, I moved to Belgium and I take that same approach that I have used in Zimbabwe. simple storytelling, dismantling complex things and sharing them with the community where I am. My work is simply transforming lives one mushroom at a time. Preserving biocultural diversity one mushroom at a time. I do not aim to complicate it. It is simply getting people together. It is simply getting people together. Finding the right tools. And my tools are first food. But also what you see in the image, art. Where I use art to help people to dream, to see beyond the problem that they are facing now. When I built the organization, I told myself, it is not going to be about too many people on the top. People who talk about it and say to others, this is how you do it. And expenses on the top. But it has to be carried by the people themselves. The people who need it the most have to be able to be in the driving seat. Because if I try to do it alone, I will not go far. But the more people I capacitate to stand with me, the better it is for me. So in my approach, I work to activate communities. So that I have people with me. So that even when I am here, the work continues. The things that we do are simple. Giving simple materials. Giving trainings. And our trainings are happening in the context where the people are. Sometimes what we have to do is just as simple as giving someone a bicycle. We try not to complicate it. We try not to complicate it. Because we have a strong belief that if everybody has to stand up and do something, it does not have to cost always a fortune. Fortunes that are currently not available. And the world is becoming less and less open to give. We have counted on systems to give us these fortunes to do the work that needs to be done. But we are getting, we are living in a time now where we have to count on, us, us, ourselves, us, ourselves, doing what we can with what we have to make sure that we've built this strong foundation of Ubuntu. Where education is happening is similar spaces like where I grew up. Where normally, if you look at mushroom farming the way it has happened before, you would think it is not possible. Right there in nature, people who are trained to become trainers are standing up and leading. I do not need to be there anymore. I do not need to be there anymore. They can keep this movement going. And they do it within the context of nature. Which makes it also immediately easy to talk about preserving nature. In Zimbabwe, we work all across the country. In Mozambique, the same approach. Training of trainers or training of community-based facilitators. Taking even some of the most complex processes, even like making mushrooms spawn into communities where normally, the old way of doing it, you would not think that in a village this is possible. The benefits that we are bringing is managing waste, enabling people to do what they can with what they have, creating income and all the rest. So, what is actually the art of staying engaged like this? From the little girl of 7, 11 to today, for me, it is making what needs to be done into bite sizes. So it is not overwhelming. And teaching everybody around me how to make these bite sizes. The impact I want is not complicated. The impact that I want is to be able to see this mother and father getting to a place of some kind of comfort where they can raise their children with dignity. Where they don't have to force their young ones into situations of difficulty. But also a world where we all start to understand that the global only exists from the generosity of the local. And the local is each and every one of us. Hear this quote that you see as a mantra of my household. It is from my husband who is an artist. Together, we take the responsibility of saying everything that we do, what we see going wrong in our world. Everything that we complain about. The solution to it has to start from our own generosity. Thank you very much.