Tariro Makanga-Chikumbirike

Tariro Makanga-Chikumbirike is a Zimbabwean journalist and talk show host. She is the head of media, marketing and public relations at the Southern African HIV and Aids Information Dissemination Service, Safaids based in Harare.

Background

Tariro Chikumbirike was born Tariro Makanga in Gutu.^[1]

Education

She has a Diploma in Mass Communication. Chikumbirike holds a Master in Business Administration from Midlands State University.^[1]

Career

Tariro Chikumbirike developed a passion for dealing with health issues, particularly HIV and Aids when she was still in college studying for a diploma in Mass Communication back in the 1990s. She got an opportunity to host a talk show titled Youth Connection on ZBC. She shot her first episode at Mashambanzou in 1997. Recounting her experience she said:

“I remember shooting my first episode at Mashambanzou in 1997, where I came face to face with HIV and Aids. It was at a time when anti-retroviral treatment had just been rolled out in the country. Talking to people living with HIV and Aids made me realise how HIV and Aids would decimate the population if people did not have information on the condition. It came as shock to me, I also did not have much knowledge on the issue except what I had read from books and other journals."

Tariro acknowledges that at the time she was heavily prejudiced against people living with the condition.

She was headhunted by Safaids in 2000, to take charge of their communications department while she was working as a broadcaster. At the time she was working with Tsitsi Mawarire on the radio show Perspectives. They moved the show to TV and rebranded it to Positive Talk.

Tariro was instrumental in launching the Journalists against Aids, (Ja-Aids (programme in Southern Africa. She has also worked with the Federation of African Media Women of Zimbabwe, Famwz, where she pioneered key gender, human rights and HIV and Aids related advocacy strategies that enabled media practitioners in the country to effectively mainstream these issues in their reportage.^[1]