The Sunday News
Peter Matika, Senior Life Reporter
AFTER a global poll that included Trust members from the UK, USA, Zimbabwe and New Zealand, the Zimbabwe Rural Schools Library Trust (ZRSLT) has now come up with the three musical singles to be released in February, as a first phase of a planned album to be launched before the end of the year.
The songs were composed by children at Hamilton West School in New Zealand, Jeys Marabini and Lloyd Mukumba.
The songs were chosen from the six that were been recorded at the beginning of this month.
“Other songs already completed are those by Denzel Mombeyarara, Elvis Muchenje, and Sandra Ndebele-Sibindi. 15-year-old Faith Kunaka has since completed her song, while veteran gospel musician Pastor Charamba is putting final touches to his song to go on the album,” said Driden Kunaka the chairperson of the ZRLST New Zealand charter.
The Trust claims all songs recorded to date are master pieces, and had difficulty coming up with the three.
“The selection was not easy because the songs we looked at are all great songs. At the end of it, we just had to come up with a song in English, a song in Ndebele and a song in Shona. We could have covered other languages had it not been for resource constraints,” said the UK-based project manager Belinda Magejo.
USA-based PhD candidate Jean Kanengoni concurred, “I loved all the songs and I know they will make an impact.”
Music is a powerful tool to disseminate messages and can therefore play a crucial role in informing and educating people about the importance of reading and the role libraries play in enabling access to reading material.
The Trust hopes that through music, all stakeholders in library development will come out more informed and proactively engage in library development.
The Zimbabwe Rural Schools Library Trust, which turns five at the end of this month, has initiated a programme to encourage Zimbabweans who went to rural schools to give back to the schools that helped groom them.
The Trust hopes that the release of the songs will trigger interest for the project with more artistes and sponsors expected to chip in.
“We are hoping with the three songs more artistes will come forward to offer their services for a good cause. Already Canadian-based gospel musician Lloyd Tevedzai has pledged to support and will be composing a song. We also hope that sponsors will come in to help so that the complete album is done soon”, said Magejo.
@peterkmatika
