MUREHWA is set to be illuminated by the launch of the Nyamutumbu Music and Sports Festival, in honour of one of its most illustrious sons, Josephat “Joe” Kudzanai Nyamutumbu, who passed on in October and left an indelible mark in his country and beyond.
The Nyamutumbu Festival, to include arts and sports, will be first held in the Nyamutumbu village over two days tomorrow and Sunday.
Running under the theme Tinohwina Chete/Victory is Certain, the inaugural festival, expected to run annually, seeks to celebrate culture and promote rural tourism.
This positive theme is precisely what the late Nyamutumbu, who passed on on October 14 at the age of 68, stood for.
For he saw the good in everyone and everything.
Joe was an immensely proud man, proud of what he achieved in life and in the corporate world in Zimbabwe and abroad, and no less proud of his unadulterated early upbringing in Nyamutumbu village.
He was real and affable: From a rural boy in a village appropriately named after his clan, to a guy about town in most of his adult life, mingling with the who’s who of society in Zimbabwe and beyond borders.
The festival will include musical performances, football and netball competitions in recognition of a man fondly known by many as Adhazh.
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Festival curator Nigel Nyamutumbu, his son, said his father left a indelible footprint for others to follow.
“The story of how Joe Nyamutumbu was able to break barriers of being a common rural boy to heading the IT department of Standard Chartered Bank in the United States of America and the United Kingdom inspired the festival theme of how success and victory can be attained in any circumstance,” said Nigel.
“By bringing Murehwa interconnected communities together in song and sport, we will be in a way preserving the Ubuntu sense of belonging that should encourage the Murehwa diaspora community to stay connected to their home village, yet concurrently inviting visitors to exchange in this cultural fete.”
He said in honour of the former StanChart and DHL executive, a select side of the villages in Murehwa will play a journalist select side in a Joe Nyamutumbu Challenge Cup.
Said Nigel: “The roping in of journalists in the first edition is part of a broader scheme of incorporating these rural communities with the national and global village.”
Afro-fusion crooners Mbeu, Sarungano, Jay Watta and MC Stansplash are among the musicians expected to join emerging local Murehwa artistes in delivering electric live performances.
