The Sunday Mail
Nyore Madzianike
ONE day, a teacher Dr Cynthia Gambiza woke up early in the morning, walked to some dilapidated buildings left at a farming area in Glen Forest, Harare and took an inspection.
There were torn-aged buildings that had been left for a number of months without attention and their corrugated roofs were almost giving in.
The infrastructure at the area needed a fortune to turn them into a habitable place.
Dr Gambiza, being married to a renowned banker, took the state of the buildings to her husband and sold her ideas and vision to him.
She wanted to start a school using the buildings that she had seen at the farm.
Her husband, Rufaro Gambiza, could not buy into her idea and line of thinking saying they were a ‘smart family’-which could not bear the brunt of image battering from running an unregistered school in the capital- worse still using such infrastructure.
He told her that he was not prepared to meet the costs of dealing with law enforcement agents and other authorities considering that Dr Gambiza was a “mere teacher”- whose income could not sustain her ideas and vision.
Faced with such a scenario and the burning feeling of pursuing her dreams and passion of owning and running a school, Dr Gambiza decided to abandon her marriage and family.
One morning in 2019, Dr Gambiza made a life changing decision. She left her affluent matrimonial home in the leafy suburb of Mt Pleasant and went to start a new life at the old abandoned buildings at the farming area in Glen Forest.
With a few dollars she had saved to fund her new investment, Dr Gambiza took a few clothes, pockets of food and blankets, and went to stay at the old buildings.
After stressful days of refurbishing the buildings and dealing with frequent calls from her husband and family to return home, Dr Gambiza managed to enroll 18 students -marking the birth of Destiny Achievers Groups of Schools.
The struggle was not yet over, as she was left with no savings and had no money to sustain her wellbeing and learning materials that were needed to sustain her new line of business.
She survived through borrowing from her friends and handouts from her students’ parents.
She recounted:
“I grew up in Bulawayo where I did my primary, secondary and tertiary education. I cannot say its fate but I always dreamt of being a teacher, even though I had good points at Advanced Level.
“Some people would say why would you enroll to be a teacher when you had such good points.
“My parents wanted me to do Radiotherapy but I always wanted to be a teacher,” Dr Gambiza told The Sunday Mail.
She said she attained a teaching qualification in 1997 and went to teach in two Government schools in Bulawayo before relocating to Harare.
“I am a teacher by profession but I do not teach for money. It is my passion. It was not easy starting the school, but because I had the passion I did not feel the pain. I just know that if I work hard, I will get somewhere.
“In 2019, I did not have enough capital to start the project and there was high staff turnover. I want to thank the parents of those students I began with for their unwavering support. With few students we had we made sure we gave them the best and they started spreading the word. We were not looking at buildings we had, but what the students were achieving in academics,” she added.
Destiny Achievers Group of Schools enrollment began to grow since its inception from 18 in 2019 to 64 the following year.
In 2022 the enrollment rose to 240 ending up with 400 students this year with a 100 percent pass rate as of last year.
“Our doors are open to anyone who is willing to learn. We do not look at how one has achieved in the past. Our desire is to see every child afford education,” she said.
Dr Gambiza said her late father was her source of inspiration and role model.
She indicated that she took a feather from his benevolence after taking care of 17 less privileged children and paid them school fees from primary to tertiary levels.
“My late father inspired me and he became my role model. I remember growing up, he had 17 children he was looking after and he made sure they all went to school. I then saw the benefit of going to school because they all managed to fend for their families after achieving in school,” she explained.
On Mother’s Day, Dr Gambiza encourages other women to be resilient and shrug-off the fear of the unknown syndrome if they want to pursue their dreams.
“It has never been very easy to start a business especially if you are not financially stable. Sometimes we fail to realise our dreams because we fear. There is a fear of the unknown. If you put your mind and your effort together you will get a reward.
“For me, it was through prayer and getting mentorship from other people and talking to the right people. There are times when I wanted to give up, but I get the encouragement from friends to get me going,” she revealed.
Through her work, in February last year Dr Gambiza received the Businesswoman of the Year award at the Zimbabwe Business Awards.
Destiny Achievers Groups of School was awarded a Philanthropic and Community Development and the Innovation and Academic Excellence award from Zimbabwe Innovative Strategic Thinking (ZIST).
Dr Gambiza also received a Business Megafest award last year.
“I am disciplined in terms of emotions although I am strict when it comes to business and dealing with students. Above all, I have an open door policy. I give time to each student to come and chat with me. We share different stories and I even keep a file where private issues are recorded,” she said.
Being a mother of three, balancing her school work and family issues has always been a challenge to her. This prompted her to enroll her children at her school in order for her to keep an eye on them.
“I am grateful that my husband is now appreciating where I was coming from and he sometimes comes in to render support.
“With this profession, as a mother, it is very difficult to balance the two. I had to put my children at the school so that I could manage to monitor them,” she said.
In future, Dr Gambiza is planning to construct an orphanage and a school for the less privileged.
Her desire is to see all the children getting equal education irrespective of their social standing or physical appearance
