adminRebecca Nyathi Sunday Leisure Reporter
SHE is young, artistic, beautiful and has brains too and a philanthropic vision. Her life is not punctuated by partying, dating and abuse of alcohol as most teenagers of her age would do. It is one that is characterised by busy schedules of how she can help change the life of the community she lives in as well as improve her artistic prowess. These are just some of the phrases that fit Nicole Chitsvatsva’s life who, at the age of 18 is an Association of Chartered Certified Accountants (ACCA) student, and has released two albums one of which is getting fair airplay on radio.
She is also working on a project which focuses on helping victims of verbal abuse especially children.
After completing O-level, Nicole started college where she is studying for an ACCA diploma and is in her final year now.
According to her, going to A-level like most children was a waste of time since she passed her O-level with flying colours. She has seven subjects at O-level.
“I passed my Ordinary Level with flying colours, since I knew what I wanted to do in life, I then applied to study ACCA. Going for Advanced Level was a waste of time for me since it was going to waste another two years of my life but now am in my final year and am doing good in my studies”, she said.
Nicole started her singing career at the age of 15 in 2012. Her first album Top chick, which she collaborated with the Chibhorane hit-maker, Tinashe Mararanyika aka Nashi Mboko, was released in the same year.
The album got a good response from the audience though it didn’t take her anywhere.
The ambitious teenager said she was introduced to the urban grooves and dancehall music which she worked on and recorded a video of her first album with Nashi Mboko.
Her second album, Zwinorwadza Sei, which she also worked on with Nashi, was released last year in September.
According to her, the album did well and it got airplay on most radio stations in the country.
“My first album did well; it got my name out there. I was known as that hip-hop chick, it got airplay. Through it I met many artistes who taught me many different things,” she said.
The Bulawayo-born promising songbird is working on a project called A Smile Keeps a Family Together. The project is about helping verbally abused victims especially children.
Nicole said the project was going on well and had helped quite a number of verbally abused children. Nicole added that she was happy with the results and the feedback she was getting from the project.
“The reason why we chose to work with the verbally abused victims is because we realised that people concentrate more on the sexually abused victims forgetting the verbally abused. “So far we have helped a lot of people, children mostly.
“What we do is get tips from the public, for example the neighbours of the victims, they will tell us how some children are being treated at their homes but especially those that do not live with their biological parents. We even identify other children ourselves especially from the way they will be playing with others,” said Nicole.
She said after observing such signs and getting tips of verbally abused victims, they go to their guardians and educate them about how they would be affecting their victims through the way they communicate.
“The response we get from those who are responsible for verbally abusing is harsh. People do not like being told that they are wrong. But a week or two, we get positive results from the victims and even their neighbours who would have cared enough to share,” she said.
Nicole added that she was able to balance her music career, school-work and her project since her family is supportive.
The zealous teenager looks up to Oliver Mtukudzi and Cynthia Mare as her inspirations and role models.
Online Reporter