Obert Dube changing lives through humanitarian work

VICTORIA Falls-based award-winning praise poet, Obert Dube who paid school fees for about 300 underprivileged children in Matabeleland North last year, has extended his humanitarian work to Matabeleland South and Midlands provinces.

Dube, a 2016 National Arts Merit Awards and 2020 Bulawayo Arts Awards, winner formed the Obert Dube Foundation Trust last year through which he has been doing humanitarian work with the hope to change lives.

The poet said his conviction is to give back to the communities that have supported his art over the years. Dube said besides setting aside 30 percent of his revenue to humanitarian work, he is also working with a Bulawayo-based tailor who has thus far, donated school uniforms and masks to his foundation.

"When I started my trust last year, I committed myself to put aside 30 percent of the funds I get from my performances for charity. With this money, I managed to pay school fees for 289 kids in Matabeleland North last year.

"I've now extended this initiative to Midlands, particularly Gokwe where I'm helping some children," said Dube.

He said the beneficiaries are randomly drawn from schools in the provinces he will have earmarked. For this year, he said he has reached out to four schools and a clinic which he wants to assist with stationery and Covid-19 personal protective equipment.

"I want to donate to schools, Donkwe Donkwe primary and secondary, Marinoha and St Anna in Kezi as well as Maphisa Clinic. I'll be donating sanitisers, masks, and stationery to the schools and gloves to the clinic.

"I'm just waiting for the schools to give me their enrolment details, but my hope is to give every child a mask. I chose Kezi because I've received tremendous support from people in Matobo district where I'm always getting invited to perform. This will be my way of giving back to the Kezi community for supporting my work in art."

He expressed gratitude to tailor, Langelihle Ncube who has donated uniforms to the trust.

"Langa is also sponsoring masks and has asked me to identify rural children in need of uniforms. I'm very grateful for this gesture," Dube said.

Dube, whose Africa Day poem titled Africa moved pan-Africanists around the continent last year, won the 2020 Pan African Poet of the year courtesy of renowned Kenyan Pan Africanist Professor Patrick Loch Otieno Lumumba and two other awards from Swaziland and South Africa.