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St Giles teacher up for Global award

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TRUST Mutekwa, aka Ticha Muzavazi, a teacher at St Giles, was recently nominated among nine others from around the world for the Global Teacher Academy’s award.

TRUST Mutekwa, aka Ticha Muzavazi, a teacher at St Giles, was recently nominated among nine others from around the world for the Global Teacher Academy’s  award whose winner will be announced in November.

Tinashe Sibanda

The academy will choose the winner in November, and the public announcement will take place at the Global Education and Skills Forum 2015 in Dubai and the winner will walk away with $1 million.

“As a teacher with a passion for children with disabilities I was delighted after receiving an email from the Global Teacher Academy to confirm that I had been nominated for the prize which is open to ‘exceptional’ teachers around the globe,” he said.

Mutekwa said he was overwhelmed to be confirmed for such a nomination from this institution mainly because the recognition has started at the widest pool — after skipping his city, country, region and the continent to international standards.

He said before the nomination he had been asked to present his story with evidence of his contribution to the teaching profession and his community with guidelines to particular sections like exceptional results in children’s learning, encouraging other teachers on how to raise teaching standards and highlights of a contribution to quality education for children of all backgrounds and preparation of young people to be global citizens.

“It is hard to present one’s own story, but I had to list a number of items that could have justified the nomination,” he added.

Mutekwa said he had included how he became the teacher he is and innovations in classroom that had given results despite working with limited braille machines and braille text books for children with visual impairments — making own teaching aids for my academic and art classes among other items.

Voting for the winner will be conducted by a team mandated by the institution after evaluating the teachers’ presentations of these stories and evidence.

Mutekwa a performance poet, Mbira Teacher and player and disability advocate, has been a school teacher for over seven years of passionately imparting various art skills like acting, story-telling, drawing, painting, textile printing & designing as well as mbira and marimba playing to children with disabilities.

Currently based at St Giles Special School in Harare, he is the school’s Arts Director who has worked with the school’s mbira club to perform at various platforms which include international days’commemorations, arts festivals, musical concerts and private functions.

With his aide, in 2010 these children recorded an eight-track musical with the mbira and launched it on the commemorations of the United Nations International Day of Persons with Disabilities.