About Vusa

Vusumuzi Sifile Sibanda was born in July 1981 in Mberengwa District, in the south western parts of Zimbabwe, along the boundary of Midlands and Matabeleland South provinces. He did his primary and secondary education at Danangombe Primary and Matabo Secondary schools respectively. At all instances, he emerged the best in his class, winning numerous prizes.

On completion of his Ordinary Level studies, Vusa proceeded to Gwanda High School for Advanced Level, where he took up studies in Geography, English Literature and Ndebele/Zulu. In 2000, he was named the best student in the Advanced Level class.

And in 2001, he became the first ever student from the Gwanda High School Advanced Level class to enrol at the National University of Science and Technology (NUST) in Bulawayo when he became part of 19 pioneer students in the Bachelor of Science Honours Degree in Journalism and Media Studies. He completed the programme in 2005.

During his days at NUST, Vusa started writing letters to the editors of some of the leading publications in Zimbabwe. This resulted in him being chosen to do his internship at the now defunct Parade Magazine, then Zimbabwe’s leading monthly magazine in June 2003. In November 2003, when it had become almost obvious Parade would not continue publishing, Vusa left Thomson publications to join the World Agroforestry Centre/International Centre for Research in Agroforestry (ICRAF) where he worked as an intern communications assistant for the organisation’s southern Africa regional programme. His duties involved co-ordinating information and publications distribution between ICRAF national programmes and partner organisations.

In addition to his Bachelor’s Degree, Vusa also has a number of other qualifications. In 2003, he participated in a programme on intergrating Gender and HIV/Aids in Agroforestry development. In 2004, he participated in a training programme titled “Teaching with Trees in Southern Africa”. The programme aimed, among other things, at identifying ways in which trees and the environment cpould be used for training at primary and secondary schools in Southern Africa. It was facilitated by ICRAF in collaboration with Peter Taylor from the Institute for Development Studies at the University of Sussex.

In 2004, together with Parkie Mbozi, Vusa initiated the establishment of an association of Agriculture Journalists in Zimbabwe. The project flopped after it turned out that most of the journalists involved in the project were bogus.

During his internship at ICRAF, Vusa was responsible for the compilation of articles for the organisation’s two major southern Africa regional publications, Miombo Voices and Living with Trees in Southern Africa, and the website www.icrafsa.org. He was also a regular contributor to the organisation’s international weekly, Transformations. He also collaborated with Livai Matarirano in establishing Agroforestry Forum, an agroforestry newsletter focusing mostly on the ICRAF Zimbabwe national programmes and its partners.

Towards the end of 2004, at the beginning of his final year at NUST, Vusa and nine other students from his class grouped themselves to form the editorial team of The Weekly Times newspaper. Despite not being too experienced, the team managed to produce a high quality weekly newspaper, which proved to be an alternative source of information for Zimbabweans. Unfortunately, the newspaper was forced to shut down in February 2005 after publishing just six issues.

During his days at The Weekly Times, Vusa also started contributing to Tariro/Ithemba Magazine, a publication fousing on orphans and vulnerable children (OVC). The magazine was edited by Parkie Mbozi, his former boss at ICRAF Southern Africa.

His experience as a communications assistant inspired Vusa to write a dissertation titled: “An assessment of the knowledge and understanding of agroforestry issues by newspaper journalists in Bulawayo”.

On completion of his studies in 2005, Vusa joined The Standard newspaper as a junior reporter and rose through the ranks to his current position of a senior staff writer.