Trailblazing junior entrepreneur

Moreblessing T Kwirirai Midlands State University
Many say that the sky is the limit, hence giving us a boundary, which states that we cannot reach a certain stage in life.

However, 21-year-old Zimbabwean Fungai Tanya Chimbuya has proved the myth wrong.

Chimbuya is the first African to be nominated as the Junior Achievement (JA) Worldwide Gather Reporter.

Chimbuya participated in the JA Company Programme in 2016 and is currently studying for her Association of Chartered Accountants (ACCA) qualifications, while working at the TechVillage Innovation Hub. She is also into blogging.

The JA Company Programme gave her an opportunity to become a leader and that helped her to both grow and refine herself.

Junior Achievement Worldwide is an organisation that equips youths with entrepreneurial skills, encouraging them to establish their own companies at a young age.

Most of the time when we fail, we lose hope but Chimbuya’s story shows that persistence pays. Her entrepreneurship journey started when she was an “A” Level student at Eveline High School in Bulawayo.

Her journey was not easy due to the prevailing economic situation, but together with some students, they managed to establish a company, which they called Economical Architects. She was its founding CEO.

Mr J Ngwenya, the Eveline High School Junior Achievement patron, described Chimbuya as a go-getter with a desire to learn and see things from working hard in order to achieve her dreams.

Chimbuya opened her personal growth blog while at the same time pursuing her accounting degree programme. School pressure did not deter her from working hard on Economical Architects.

Explains Chimbuya: “The moment you decide to do something out of the norm, especially fresh out of high school, it might seem overwhelming, alongside and outside pressure that makes you feel like you are not making any progress in life, but where there is a will, there is a way. The question is: how bad do you want it? Bad enough to try 999 times with a dead end?”

Chimbuya is at the second stage of her articles for ACCA qualifications, juggling school, personal growth blog and her new post as the Junior Achievement Worldwide Gather Reporter.

She believes that young people should not stop working hard towards achieving their dreams.

“I was just a regular young girl in school focused on getting good grades so that I could make it to college or university.

“Just like most kids, I had plans to finish school and get a well-paying job. That meant majoring in well-respected degree programmes. I recall at some point wishing to become an actuarial scientist. All I am saying is that I had a mentality of getting school done and getting a job for security.

“For things to get better, I always relied on the outside environment to change. When I got bad grades, I would blame it on the teachers and the fact that my school was not an A school. When prices went up, I would blame the government and wait for it to change things. I never took 100 percent responsibility for my life.”

For everything that was not going according to plan in her life, Chimbuya would lay the blame on unfavourable conditions.

She believed these were working against her. Her life’ ambition revolved around school, a well-paying job and family.

But that changed when she became a member of the Junior Achievement Zimbabwe (JAZ) while still at high school. JAZ is basically about entrepreneurship. The club required students to establish functional companies that could generate a profit. Chimbuya was elected the CEO/President of the club.

“In pursuit of becoming a better leader and developing skills to successfully run a company, as well as lead a team, I became interested in reading and learning about entrepreneurship and leadership.

“I listened to many entrepreneurs like Richard Branson, John Maxwell, and John Spoke on how to become a better leader and build a great company through becoming better yourself.

“This was a paradigm shift for me because I had always believed that the outside environment had to change for me to succeed.”

Gather Reporters work as international story-tellers, producing content for JA Worldwide social media channels and Gather.

Once every six weeks a Gather reporter researches, writes, records or films a story related to alumni in their region. Also, once a week the Gather reporter posts a “Discovery of the Week” for sharing with the alumni community.

The idea is to assist in developing global communication skills as an international story-teller on the Gather team.