Chido Govera is a farmer, campaigner, and educator based in

Zimbabwe Zimbabwe (), officially the Republic of Zimbabwe, is a landlocked country located in Southeast Africa, between the Zambezi and Limpopo Rivers, bordered by South Africa to the south, Botswana to the south-west, Zambia to the north, and ...

. The founder of The Future of Hope Foundation, she has promoted

mushroom cultivation Fungiculture is the microbiological culture, cultivation of fungi such as mushrooms. Cultivating fungi can yield foods (which include mostly Edible mushroom, mushrooms), medicinal mushrooms, medicine, MycoWorks#Technology, construction material ...

as a sustainable source of food and income in impoverished regions of the world.

Early life and education

Born in 1986 in Zimbabwe, Chido Govera was

orphaned An orphan (from the el, ορφανός, orphanós) is a child whose parents have died. In common usage, only a child who has lost both parents due to death is called an orphan. When referring to animals, only the mother's condition is usuall ...

at age seven when her mother died of AIDS. She lived with her grandmother and her brother, but she endured abuse at the hands of family members and had to leave school at age nine to work full-time, "digging in people’s fields all to get a small bowl of maize meal". When she was ten, one of her mother's sisters suggested marriage to a man thirty years her senior, but Govera refused, afraid to leave her grandmother and her younger brother. In 1998 at age eleven, with the help of a woman from the local

United Methodist Church The United Methodist Church (UMC) is a worldwide mainline Protestant denomination based in the United States, and a major part of Methodism. In the 19th century, its main predecessor, the Methodist Episcopal Church, was a leader in evangelic ...

, she enrolled in a week-long program at Africa University in

Mutare, Zimbabwe Mutare (formerly Umtali) is the most populous city in the province of Manicaland, and the third most populous city in Zimbabwe, having surpassed Gweru in the 2012 census, with an urban population of 224,802 and approximately 260,567 in the surr ...

, financed by

Gunter Pauli Gunter Pauli is an entrepreneur, economist, and author born in 1956 in Antwerp (Belgium). He is best known for his main work, '' The Blue Economy''. He has lived on 4 continents, is fluent in 7 languages, is a resident of Japan since 1994 and s ...

and the ZERI Foundation, There she learn how to colonise oyster mushrooms (''

Pleurotus ostreatus ''Pleurotus ostreatus'', the oyster mushroom, oyster fungus, or hiratake, is a common edible mushroom. It was first cultivated in Germany as a subsistence measure during World War I and is now grown commercially around the world for food. It is ...

'') using corn stalk waste products.

Career

After working in the university's lab between the ages of 12 and 16 years, she was not only able to feed her own family, she was able to teach other orphans to raise mushrooms successfully. Govera taught mushroom culture from cornstalk waste to people from her native Zimbabwe, and her educational efforts have also included use of coffee waste, and have reached people in Australia,

Tanzania Tanzania (; ), officially the United Republic of Tanzania ( sw, Jamhuri ya Muungano wa Tanzania), is a country in East Africa within the African Great Lakes region. It borders Uganda to the north; Kenya to the northeast; Comoro Islands ...

, the Congo,

South Africa South Africa, officially the Republic of South Africa (RSA), is the Southern Africa, southernmost country in Africa. It is bounded to the south by of coastline that stretch along the Atlantic Ocean, South Atlantic and Indian Oceans; to the ...

India India, officially the Republic of India (Hindi: ), is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by area, the second-most populous country, and the most populous democracy in the world. Bounded by the Indian Ocean on the so ...

, Colombia,

Serbia Serbia (, ; Serbian: , , ), officially the Republic of Serbia (Serbian: , , ), is a landlocked country in Southeastern and Central Europe, situated at the crossroads of the Pannonian Basin and the Balkans. It shares land borders with Hungar ...

and China. She has been credited with "pioneering new techniques, for example growing mushrooms from coffee grounds for commercial use". Govera has published a memoir, ''The Future of Hope'' and established a foundation by the same name.

Awards

In 2009, Govera received the "Sustainability Award" by the

Specialty Coffee Association of America The Specialty Coffee Association of America (SCAA), founded in 1982, was a non-profit trade organization for the specialty coffee industry. With members located in more than 40 countries, SCAA represented different segments of the specialty coffee ...

, "for her sustainable project of reusing organic waste from the coffee industry to cultivate mushrooms". She also won the ''Yo Dona'' magazine "Humanitarian award" in June, 2011, as a "Zimbabwean orphan who is dedicated to helping orphans overcome adversity and live fruitful lives".

References

External links

Chido Govera – The Future of Hope
(video, 39:58 min)
Chido Govera – This is my story
(audio, 18:56 min)
Food waste pioneers
BBC broadcast (video, 30 min)
National Gallery of Zimbabwe, Chido Govera Profile
(video, 5:21 min) {{DEFAULTSORT:Govera, Chido Living people 1986 births Zimbabwean feminists Humanitarians Social entrepreneurs