Published by the government of Zimbabwe
Wongai Zhangazha
23 February 2008
Harare — ZIMBABWEAN broadcast journalist and filmmaker Hopewell Chin'ono was this week awarded the 2008 Archbishop Desmond Tutu Leadership Fellowship award for his outstanding leadership qualities in a local HIV and Aids documentary film -- Pain in My Heart.
The documentary looks at the plight of Zimbabweans in the face of HIV and Aids and Chin'ono was given the prestigious award, which is run at Oxford University's African Leadership Institute in the United Kingdom, with other 20 Africans who would have shown leadership in their work.
"I feel very honoured to have been given this award and I feel that the award is a victory for journalism and film. I dedicate it to all my colleagues who are working under difficult times for a pittance," he said.
The Fellowship will start with a workshop at the Mont Fleur Conference Centre near Stellenbosch in the Western Cape and Robben Island in South Africa where former President Nelson Mandela spent 27 years in captivity.
Chin'ono will then start a training programme coordinated by the SAID Business School at Oxford University starting from September 2008.
The 36-year-old Chin'ono said the emotional documentary film, done by his television production company Television International, was part of his social responsibility to help those infected and affected by the pandemic.
"The impact of HIV and Aids, especially in children and women in Zimbabwe as well as the whole of Africa is a devastating story of our time. Through the documentary I wanted to show how people infected by the disease were dying mainly due to failure to access medication.
"My aim was to make people see the difference of how medication can change the life of an HIV and Aids patient and how lack of it can easily take aware lives. I did this by showing two patients one who was on treatment and the other who was not," he said.
The documentary tells the true story of two Aids patients Angeline and Peter exposing their fears and hopes in the utmost direct and efficient way possible.
Angeline (who is now late) is a single mother of two narrates how she is failing to access anti-retroviral medication while Peter recovered from death bed after the River of Life church came to his rescue by providing him with anti-retroviral drugs.
Unfortunately Angeline could not be helped as the church could only help seven people out of 55 on their books.
She later died at Parirenyatwa Hospital.
Chin'ono said, "The film has been shown on Zimbabwe Television, Nigeria's BEN Television and Passion TV, Ghana's OBE and UK's SKY Television. It made an impact locally and internationally and many people have volunteered to look after Angeline's children.
"That is when I set up the Angeline Chiyanike Trust which now looks after the kids who lost their mothers from HIV and Aids in the film. The Trust has a number of trustees that stretch from different spheres."
The trustees are veteran musician Oliver Mtukudzi, footballers Benjani Mwaruwari and George Mbwando together with Dr Rati Ndhlovu, who is the head of the HIV and Aids Unit at Parirenyatwa hospital, lawyer Irene Petras and Dr Hilda Mujuru, a Paediatrician consultant at Harare Hospital.
Chin'ono who studied his journalism at Harare Polytechnic is also a holder of two Master of Arts degrees in International Journalism from London's City University and one in Documentary Film Practice from London's Brunel University.
He has worked for a number of media organisations that include the defunct Horizon, Sunday Gazette, Daily Gazette, Jamaican Times, Sunday Mail and the BBC among others.
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