The words of US based Zim woman who funds NERA, Tajamuka, ThisFlag demos..She speaks about ‘sleeping with Promise Mkwananzi story’
I am Fadziso Jena the whore, Woman with Aids, Criminal etc as I have been referred to by some individuals. Yes, I am the woman who was donating to Tajamuka in my desire for change, Yes, I am the woman who made the terrible mistake of asking for accountability on funds I had donated. I live in the US as some of you well know by now. I have lived here for a while. I arrived in the USA years ago, with the dream of getting a degree and going back home. Well over time as you all know the Political Situation in Zimbabwe deteriorated and the economic situation became worse.
I remember my first job, I was a nanny for $3 an hour. I was making less than a hundred and fifty dollars a week. I was nineteen, my parents had paid for one team of school fees and I had figure out how I was going to make it the next term. I was a nineteen-year-old trying to fit in at school and was going to school with people who had money whilst not having much myself. I was lucky that I met my best friend till this day a Swiss girl who just loved me as friend unconditionally.
I started working at the nursing home and saved enough for a car and got a few other jobs. I would literally work 3 days straight. A sample schedule for me was 7-3pm work, go to class 6-9pm, go to sleep for few hours go to work 11-7am then 7am to 3pm and repeat that cycle. On weekends, I would work what they call a Baylor shift – 16 hour days 7am to 11pm then leave that job and rush to the next job. My tuition was almost $7000 a term and with books almost $8000 a term, housing was separate. After the first term, I got an apartment off campus so I could pay for housing monthly. I had car payment because in my State you need to have car to get places so I had to have car insurance. I was determined to make it on my own.
I struggled a lot and sometimes I couldn’t afford to pay for my car insurance so I often got tickets for that. I would be rushing from one job to the next and get tickets for that. At one point I am ashamed to say I had twelve points in Twelve months and they suspended my license which made my commute to work even more difficult. The tuition bill was high and there were times I had to make a choice between paying rent and paying fees. I choose to pay fees, I bounced a few checks in my time which I had to pay. Through all of that I had my one friend who stood by me and would give me information on homework assignments since I missed a lot of classes whilst working and she would also save food for me from the cafeteria since I built my schedule for classes around work.
I was determined to make it on my own. At one point my car was even repossessed . When I was homeless I would take a shower in the gym at school and go to class then go to work. I have lived out of buses, my car, benches and so own. What’s funny is that as a young woman I was so ashamed of telling people even my parents that I was homeless therefore no one ever really knew my problems. I made a lot of mistakes. One of my biggest weaknesses was that I was stubborn. If someone told me something was impossible I had to make sure it was possible.
As I had worked as a nursing assistant I paid for school and also sent money home. I finished school still owing money for the last term. I continued working as a Nursing Assistant when an opportunity opened in one of the places I was working to take up a post in the staffing office. I went to my director and told him I would volunteer for free to help until they found someone. My Director decided to let me work in the staffing office for my nursing assistant pay. I was overjoyed didn’t I didn’t care about the pay. I had an opportunity. I worked so hard and managed to more than meet their expectations. Unfortunately, my director was fired and a new one was hired and he had his own person for the staffing officer.
The new director however gave me an opportunity to do what I wanted. I opted to take the Six Sigma Course which was offered by the organization and while doing that I travelled from Department to Department, learnt a lot and built internal systems. I ended up in the Education department. Once there I learnt so much about healthcare Education. During this whole time, I was barely making a living wage so I worked as a nursing assistant in other nursing homes at night to make ends meet. While in the Education Department I learnt a lot about healthcare education.
At that point I decided, I would open a nursing School. I didn’t have a lot of money. What I had was the little in my retirement from what my job paid in and a couple of checks. In the very beginning of my business I asked a relative to work with me. They put a little money in but business was tough, we were in debt, we had no money, we were losing money and he left the business abruptly and I was left with all the debt. I knew in my state you could take the nursing assistant test by challenging it so I created a three-day course to help students challenge the test. I started advertising in my local penny saver magazine and taking calls on my cell phone while I was at work. I opened a test prep school which only required a business license right as the economic down turn was occurring so everyone was trying to find a new career as people were being laid off.
So, things took of immediately but running a school was not easy. I rented on room which had a bathroom inside put tables and chairs and I started working. For the first few weeks I was alone, I was the teacher, the receptionist and bursar. I took two weeks’ vacation time from my other job and I taught a morning class, an evening class and a weekend class. I was working 18 hour days. But I was loving it. I learnt a lot made a lot of mistakes. I quit my job and started working fulltime for myself. I decided to become a licensed school which took me almost two years to accomplish. I did all the paperwork myself. I managed to get a Diploma nursing program licensed by the board of nursing which took me another year and I did all the paperwork myself. I managed to create Diploma and Degree nursing programs which were more condensed and shorter than programs in other schools. I worked very hard and after two years of becoming a licensed school we could apply for accreditation and I finally got accreditation which took almost four years and cost me thousands of dollars and I struggled. It took almost two years to become approved by the Federal Financial Aid for students to use federal funding
In the meantime, there were times when I literally would have no money after paying people. Operational costs were high at times and I had to go without paychecks although I always made sure my employees had paychecks. I remember when I literally couldn’t pay my rent and of course I was kicked out by my land lord. I was a business owner who paid employees but didn’t have enough money to survive, my employees had more money than me literally but I was happy if I paid all my employees, the rent for my business and the priority bills for my business anything else personal was mine and was secondary but I had to make sure the business survived. I made a lot mistakes but I also learnt a lot.
One thing I really learnt during the tough times was tough times pass and giving up is not an option. In my time in college I had learnt the important lessons that first world countries had rules and regulations for reasons, if you were speeding or didn’t have insurance you got a ticket, if you a broke law even out of ignorance you got arrested, if you couldn’t pay your bills they shut off your electricity, water, repossessed your car, evicted you which would result in you being labelled a “delinquent tent” (delinquent not as in crazy but someone who had failed to pay rent. How do I know all this? It all happened to me). I remember in my first year of being here getting a jay walking ticket for not crossing the road at the traffic lights (robots) I didn’t even know what jay walking was.
What I learnt was there were rules and everybody had to follow them. I became an adult very quickly I felt like I went from 19 to 25 in less than a year and I learnt the hard way to respect and appreciate rules. I also learnt that I had totally messed up my credit potentials because that’s what happens when you didn’t pay your bills. See my focus for a long period was to pay college and to get my paperwork then pay for all expenses related to that and survive so every penny went to that.
It took over 7 years to get to the Goal of Accreditation and Financial Aid. Currently my school has almost 150 nursing students with a projected increase to 250 by the end of 2018. In the spring, we add a Master’s Program and We will become the Medical University of Tampa Bay. We have had our struggles as a school at one point we discovered students were cheating on examinations and we had to drop 32 students. I remember being threatened by students, as a woman people always feel they can bully you. I had students posting evictions and all kinds of things online in a bid to stop me from reporting the cheating to the board. But I reported it which led to city wide investigations of cheating and several nursing students ended up being kicked out from varies nursing schools and I didn’t win any friends but I felt I did the right thing. One thing I have always felt strongly about is that I will not allow anyone to manipulate my past mistakes or failures to give them a pass on cheating and lying.
I paid for my mistakes fully and learnt my lessons so I know that I must stand for something and not fall for everything. I didn’t grow up rich, my mother was a teacher and my father a buyer. We had what we needed and we were happy. I didn’t go to a private school and for me to come to the United States my parents sold the first home they had bought in a high density suburb to pay for tickets and the first term of school. I learnt everything I needed to know about my new country, how things worked and I learnt through stumbling and falling along the way but also by getting up and moving on. The board of nursing and Department supported our case to dismiss the cheating students. We were of course sued although none of them won.
My school www.medicalprepinstitute.org has had an average of 86% pass rate which is higher than the USA and Canada national average. In 2013 we had the highest pass rate in the state which was a hundred (100%) see link to https://appsmqa.doh.state.fl.us/MQASearchServices/NursingPrograms.
We have had numerous student complaints for the program being too hard, and other outrageous claims but the Nursing Board, Department of Education, Accreditation Board and Federal Financial Aid has always cleared us. We run an accelerated Nursing program which involves at time ten-hour classroom days and 12 hour clinical shifts. This year we asked to apply for renewal of licensure to Department of education by accreditation which means instead of renewing yearly we renew every 3 to 4 years.
I mostly work from Home now as I do paperwork mostly, I have staff of about fifty employee’s majority of which are Masters and Doctorate Nurses who teach, A business office with four staff members, an Admissions office with three Staff members, A registrar’s office, A Clinical Office and Janitorial Staff. My payroll monthly runs at about $150 000 a month. Operational costs are about $200 000 a month which includes a lease bill of $10 000 a month, Payment for tax debt $10 000 a month, Benefits for employees which run at around $16 000 monthly which include; health, dental vision, my electricity bill is an average of $1 500 a month and other bills for operational cost and past debt. Most of my employees have been with me at least 3 years. We report our yearly income to the Department of Education, Federal Financial Aid and Accreditation and we submit audited financial statements yearly. Our annual Revenue is about 2,5 to 3 million a year with significant increase due to an increase in tuition costs going up from current average $23000 to $35000 for a year program.
In 2016 in July I answered the Call to the struggle by Evan Mawarire. At the time, I was doing small bits of work in Zimbabwe mostly just paying tuition for those in need and I wanted to do more. I didn’t have much but I felt we all had to try and do something and when Evan arrived I responded to the call. I was so excited for change. I felt finally here is an opportunity to really make a difference. I didn’t really care how much time or money I had to spend. I looked at my budget and I decided $20000 to $50000 would be what I would spend monthly. Not that I was rich, No I was far from it I was going to sacrifice. I could have kept the money sure and paid off things quickly for business and myself but I decided I would stick to my monthly plans and focus on Zimbabwe. Zimbabwe has always broken my heart.
See I had a brother at one point who because of shear hopelessness was struggling with drugs. My mother would call me crying, scared and I decided just as my business was beginning to take off to bring my family to visit. So my parents and my brother and sister by the grace of God received the US visas and came. I say by his Grace because as we all know, it’s difficult to get an American Visa. My family came and were supposed to stay here for six months and we decided to file paperwork for them to stay. All are now residents. That process was costly but worth it. My brother is now doing great. He went to college has a great job and is a totally different person. What changed for him? Opportunity! I taught my brother and Sister every lesson I had learnt, don’t do this don’t do that, make sure you do this etc and am very proud to say they are very independent people with good jobs.
So it was a no brainer for me when I was inspired by Evan. I started Zimbabwe Freedom 2 page for news. I was trying to find a way to contribute to the struggle. That was exciting for a few weeks but I needed to do more. I started trying to get in touch with this flag, Africa Square, Tajamuka in fact for a while I was determined. I couldn’t even focus on my job here it was all about Zimbabwe. I felt that this flag was the soul and that tajamuka was the action that resulted from the suffering of the soul. I finally got in touch with Promise and I offered my service. I would do whatever they needed me to do and provide support. I said I would boost their posts online so their information and activities would spread to more Zimbabweans. I knew a lot about marketing because of my business. I spoke to Promise who was teaching me the ropes. The First important thing was that I was to be safe.
If you donate money you were in danger. So the less people who knew about you the better. So, I knew only Promise in Tajamuka for a while. My first question to him was how are guys surviving do they have jobs. He explained to me he didn’t nor did his comrades it was help from well-wishers. So, my thought was of course I can help with that. The least I could do was make sure they were surviving. I also started helping online more. Whenever you saw including those bright alerts of an abduction that was me. In the course of the excitement I joined the WhatsApp group for this flag. Which I was added to by Doug Coultard. I was really excited to learn. I read the constitution, I read the electoral laws , I read Zim asset, I read every Government Ministry page. I wanted to know everything. I asked a lot of questions. I was quite annoying.
The WhatsApp group was my first real interaction in years with many Zimbabweans as I had spent most of my life working literally and living under a rock. The last time I was this excited about anything other than work was when I worked on the Obama campaign and we literally walked and canvassed for hours on that campaign. I would contribute on the WhatsApp group and I made one friend a young lady. I was on the group for maybe a month not sure and got really upset when this guy Mandla said the Pastor had sold out and I laid into him and left the group. I was so angry with him. I continued talking to the one friend I had made and we would talk about Zimbabwe for hours. She then introduced me to two other people, a male and a female. Savannah who worked for this Flag US. I loved these people omg we would talk for hours about Zimbabwe. I can pull phone records just to show the amount of time we spend on the phone while I worked on my Zimbabwe Freedom page and the Tajamuka page.
During that time the other young man introduced me to NERA and explained to me the importance of electoral reform. Soon I was also working on the NERA page. I did not mind I loved it. It was 24 hours Zimbabwe. I missed Zimbabwe, I always said it’s funny my whole family was here in the States but I missed Zimbabwe more. I was excited about the New York Demo. I was not involved in the organizing but I decided I contribute. They were trying to figure out a way to attract more Zimbabweans to get involved and I suggested how about Thomas Mapfumo and that I could pay the fee. They managed to get Thomas for free he was a true Patriot and just wanted to be there the only thing he needed was transportation and residence. I donated $5000 and during that time I also purchased a car for what I thought was Tajamuka. Promise informed us they needed a car for mobilization and other activities including quick get always.
During my time in the struggle I contributed to Tajamuka, #thisFlag New York, NERA, Todd Maforimbo had set up a gofund me for fees for kids I made my contribution inform and screenshots to go fund me. My logic to donations to these organization was simple. ThisFlag was making noise in demo at UN which would be good publicity for Zimbabwe’s Struggle, Tajamuka was action and pressure on the ground in Zimbabwe which was made to fight the ZANU PF govt, NERA was electroral reform which was much needed for opposition to win an election and Todd Maforimbo gofundme was humanitarian, I completely understood it. I was already paying fees for other children in Zimbabwe so it made sense.
Now over the past few days I have been attacked for Publicly making a statement asking Promise to stop asking for resources. I asked Promise a few weeks ago not to ask Zimbabweans for resources. He didn’t listen to me. See over the course of my tenure in Tajamuka I first left the organization when I discovered Promise was not giving other comrades their allocated share. I was very disappointed because I felt he was doing the very thing the government we were fighting were doing. I came back after a friend persuaded me to continue with the bond note fight. See before I left I had written the petition. We had demos planned but nothing ever panned out. Citizens were supposed to sign the Petition, and then we would pay for a class action lawsuit.
Instead Promise and his Tajamuka crew had a private meeting with the RBZ which I fought against and at that point I resigned because I realized nothing was ever completely done right and finished and it didn’t make since. So when Promise started asking for money to DEMO against bond note NOW I didn’t understand. First he misused funds meant for other people . Now you were asking to DEMO against the Bond Notes when you failed to complete the first DEMO against bond notes it just didn’t add up so I spoke up. Secondly, I saw Promise have a Press conference against a NERA youth rally which was to take place and nothing made sense about his behavior, especially how he handled donor funds.
Over the last few days I have been called a whore, Simba Usore said I was a person with AIDS from sleeping with people, Promise said I was his small house and a scorned woman, Kuda Musasiwa and his crew said I probably wanted to suck Promise’s Dick and a criminal as some decided to pull old evictions from years and years ago and how could I possibly fund a struggle when I had failed to pay my rent years ago etc. Kuda Musasiwa even posted a complaint made by a student about my business I guess in effort to also discredit my business. When I went, public I said I expected them to come a try and destroy me as much as they could to silence me.
I WILL NOT BE SILENT. I WILL NEVER BE QUIET. I WILL NOT ALLOW ANYONE TO USE MY PAST MISTAKES IN PERSONAL STRUGGLE TO MAKE IT IN THE DIASPORA. I HAVE LEARNT AND PAID FOR MY PAST MISTAKES AND I AM NOT PERFECT BUT I WILL NOT ALLOW SOME ONE TO SILENCE ME ABOUT SOMETHING AS IMPORTANT AS THE STRUGGLE SO DO YOUR WORST.
Promise has said I had an affair with him. We have NEVER had an AFFAIR. I have never met Promise anywhere. I hear he claims I met him in South Africa. This is simple I have requested my travel records from Immigration here. They keep records so I will present those in court. I donated to so many people and have records to prove it Was I it sleeping with all these people. Was I also sleeping with his wife who I was helping because he told me she was in danger. I challenge Promise to prove that I was his small house in fact I demand it. I have never felt so humiliated in my life. WHAT IS SHOCKING ME NONE OF THESE MEN ARE REALLY INTERESTED IN DEALING WITH THE ACCOUNTABILITY ISSUE.
FOR A WHILE NOW I LEFT THE STRUGGLE. I DONATED BUT WAS MOSTLY DISAPPOINTED WITH THE LACK OF OUTCOMES. I even STOPPED UPDATING MY ZIMBABWE FREEDOM 2 PAGE. Yesterday was one of the worst and best days of my LIFE. I was attacked even after presenting facts and documents because I was supposed to sweep everything under the rug and allow Promise to continue asking for money because I was derailing the struggle. So in the process of the struggle we must become like ZANU PF silence anyone who speaks up. I was more upset about being a whore than being called a criminal or delinquent why because I would never reduce myself to being used physically by man.
A delinquent or criminal I can take, why because I know I am not one otherwise why would the Federal Government of the United States allow me to Own a College they federally fund. My mistakes are mine yes I failed to pay rentals when I was struggling that was part of MY personal struggle and I survived that. I remember Oprah who growing up my mother admired and we watched religiously told her personal story and her mistakes and how it made her who she is. She is a shining example of personal struggle and the power of being empowered by your past. My past empowers me, yes I didn’t have a silver spoon in my mouth nor was I a privileged ZANU PF child but my personal struggle allowed me to appreciate the struggle of others. I struggled so much when I was in college and therefore I find it difficult to say no to a child who needs tuition or a widow. I now also house widows, pay fees for kids in Primary and Secondary School.
Currently I also have kids at University of Zimbabwe and In Kenyan Universities and I can provide documentation. I was even laughing today that someone insulted me online but she doesn’t know that I am one of the donors who pay for her friend’s kids who she requested tuition for online. I’m not doing it because I am rich, I’m doing it because the Zimbabwe Child needs hope and opportunity.
NEVER LET OTHERS DEFINE YOU, BLACKMAIL YOU OR HARASS YOU INTO SILENCE. OWN WHO YOU ARE, YOUR MISTAKES ARE THE STAIRCASE TO YOUR SUCCESS. One of the things I have learnt in life is the importance of saying sorry. I vomited something Promise told me about another Young woman to deter me from getting in touch with her organization which looking back was highly unlikely and another Lie by Promise and I sincerely apologize to Maureen Kademunga. I should have been very careful and I am very, very ashamed for even mentioning you in this fight. I have since apologised.
I spent a day crying upset and shocked by the levels these men were willing to go to discredit me in a bid to exonerate Promise. My MUM called me to tell she watched a Video with Promise pushing a Journalist to release my name so I guess so everyone would know the whore, small house scorned woman, the one sucking Promise’s Dick, the woman would be delinquent on rentals years ago, the criminal I guess. My mother said honey this is what they do, let it go OR they won’t stop.
I TOLD MY MOTHER FOR TOO LONG WE HAVE BEEN SILENCED. I DONATED AND WORKED HARD ON ZIMBABWE, I wrote human rights documents which Albie took to Switzerland to present. I wrote weekly emails to the international community about the Zimbabwe situation. I wrote Petitions to the world bank, Afrimexbank, ZEC, I contributed financially and trusted THESE people. I say let them do their worst but I WILL NOT BE SILENCED.
