POVO the first of its kind, is a Zimbabwean online opinion magazine was launched in December 2009 as a nonprofit and apolitical, arts and culture movement. It is a candid platform for Africans to express themselves in the global community with the Zimbabwean context in mind, to voice their opinions with emphasis on the arts and culture. We believe that every person’s opinion is valid, which is why we have set up this platform for continuous and vigorous discourse and on all issues African in general and Zimbabwean in particular. As such, we strive to promote resilience, brilliance and perseverance in sight of seemingly insurmountable obstacles in people’s daily lives.
Objectives
POVO aims to cultivate a sense of patriotism born from a true pride in our country and its people. We want to celebrate Zimbabwe and we want the youth to feel they are a part of the country’s destiny. With this platform we intend to engage in various youth empowering exercises to partner with organisations, individuals, companies, communities who have the same ethos. Through meaningful contributions, we want to instill hope and a sense of self-worth to our fellow Zimbabweans and also showcase their various talents and interests.
History
The genesis of POVO can be traced to 2004, through the efforts of Baynham Goredema who was secretary of the Graphics Association of Zimbabwe at the time. It was his idea to create a small pocket sized booklet featuring contributions from various disciplines in the arts sector. He invited contributors to submit 300 word long articles with any one image or illustration using only the colours of the Zimbabwe flag. In total, 12 contributors responded with sponsors for the paper and printing of a total five hundred 32 page booklets printed in A6 landscape. The arrangement was for each contributor to get 10 books each for distribution whilst the rest would be given to strategic stakeholders within the Zimbabwean arts industry. Just when the book was ready for print, the Zimbabwean economy collapsed, which saw our major sponsors pulling out of the project altogether. The project was only resuscitated in 2009 as an online magazine with a global reach and was the more viable option for a startup like the POVO project.
POVO Journal
In 2011 we decided to publish an annual report of our activities. We did it as a 24 page magazine with a few articles from the website and artwork supplied by various designers. In 2012 we decided to call it the POVO Journal and had more articles and it was much bigger. This will continue to be published annually at the end of the year.
Social
POVO is also available on the various social network sites and can be followed for regular updates on the activities we engage in.
here is the POVO social list you to follow; Tumblr, Youtube, Facebook,
Twitter, Google Plus