The Sunday News
Sithatshisiwe Vuma, Sunday News Reporter
IN 2018, Ms Nozizwe Iris Mhlanga was touched when she saw a disabled man fall on the hard concrete streets of Bulawayo.
While the incident took place, she noticed something else. She seemed to be the only one who was moved by the spectacle. All around her, people continued with their lives, and the hustle and bustle of the City of Kings did not pause for a moment despite the fact that there was a person clearly in need of attention and help.
It was on this day that Ms Mhlanga decided that she would do something about people like that man, who lay on the ground as the rest of Bulawayo got on with life, seemingly without a care for his plight.
She picked the man from the street, fed him, clothed him and went with him to the hospital and paid for his hospital bills. She monitored the man and made sure that he was taken good care of.
Through that one man who went and spread the good news of what she had done for him, that is how she became Nozizwe Mother of Nations Trust. According to Ms Mhlanga, a mother is someone who provides care to the world.
As a mother, she feels pity for the undermined people, orphans, widows and the disabled and she tries her best to share with them the little that she has.
She has taken responsibility of children who reside in Ngozi Mine squatter camp which is situated in Cowdray Park.
She pays their fees, buys them school uniforms and stationery. Every Saturday she goes there and delivers delicious home-cooked meals and spends afternoons with them. Since 2018 she has managed to make others flash smiles.
That’s how she portrays a motherly heart.
In recent years, Nozizwe Mother of Nations Trust has donated to different schools, orphanages and churches. Some people say that a mother should provide warmth when it is cold, and she has made it her concern to provide blankets for the needy.
She gave away blankets to Cure Zimbabwe (100), St Francis Annexe (70), King George VI Centre (100), Ngozi Mine (64), Midlands Hope (30), Mguza Maraposa (26), Nguboyenja widows and orphans (30), Makokoba (Thabiso Youth Centre (70), Lovemore Project Darwendale (100), Ingutsheni Hospital (700), and Church of Christ Colenbrander North End widows and orphans (51).
To celebrate this year’s Mother’s Day, she donated groceries to 60 widows and 30 orphans yesterday at Church of Christ, in North End suburb. Food parcels included a 10kg bag of mealie-meal, cooking oil two litres, one kg of chunks, one kg of game meat, one bar of laundry soap and one blanket.
