adminZIMBABWE is a conveyor belt of talent in every discipline.
The country’s impact has been felt, over the years, as an exporter of raw talent.
Be it in sport, showbiz, engineering, administration, medical field or any other discipline, Zimbabwe continues to rule the roost.
Some of our finest talents are now shining overseas.
One challenge remains, though.
Many of them are still largely unknown back in their motherland.
Others have since adopted foreign lands as their mother countries.
Sadly, we tend to remember stars of Zimbabwean origin once they hit international headlines.
We seem not to care how these stars weaved their way to the top, which is unfortunate.
And, how we don’t track our stars in foreign lands, is worrying for a small nation like Zimbabwe.
In showbiz, we have plenty of such stars making international headlines.
Actress Danai Jekesayi Gurira has made it into Hollywood but can’t be described as a box office hit back home.
She has starred in big projects but is not being fully embraced by her own.
Female rapper Awa Khiwa, who was plucked from Nkayi, is on fire in Germany yet we are still to honour her back home.
Last Friday, songbird Tina Masawi received a once-in-a-lifetime honour to sing at Real Madrid defender Dani Carvaja’s wedding in Spain.
She sang for 200 A-List guests, which comprised some of the world’s football mega stars like Thabaut Courtois, Marco Asensio, among other Carvajal’s teammates.
Unfortunately, Tina is little known back home yet Europe has embraced her.
How she ended up settling in Europe, making an international breakthrough and establishing herself there, is a question for another day.
As a young nation, we need to embrace our sons and daughters who are shining in foreign lands.
Failure to honour these lads in their lifetime is not only sad but embarrassing. For a start, scouts in every sport and arts discipline need to cast their nets widely.
Research is now a vital and critical component to ensure that we take stock of our foreign-based stars.
It doesn’t make sense for us to start showering them with praises when they make international headlines yet we don’t honour them back home.
While success is said to have many fathers, we need to be part of the process which has made these stars household names overseas.
This can only be achieved with a change of mindset where there is need to treat our foreign-based artists as part of us.
We need to make them understand that they are part of us, in good and bad times, and they will always have our support.
We need to make them appreciate that they are loved back home, simply because we are generating a lot of pride from whatever they are doing, and we feel they are representing us with honour and dignity.
They also should be seen to be generating pride, too, from the fact that they are Zimbabweans and, in whatever they will be doing, they will be representing their beautiful country.
After all, there is no country in the world as special as ours.
Online Reporter