We will soldier on: traditional, faith healers

Tendai Chara

TRADITIONAL and faith healers who are affiliated to the Zimbabwe National Practitioners Association (ZINPA) vowed that they will carry on with the work that was left by Sekuru Friday Chisanyu, the association’s late founding president.

Sekuru Chisanyu, who was at the helm of the association for more than a decade, succumbed to diabetes early this month and was buried at his rural home in Karoi.

ZINPA is an association which represents the interests of traditional birth attendants, midwives, traditional and faith healers.

The association, which is licensed by the Traditional Medical Practitioners Council (TMPC), under the Ministry of Health and Child Care, has a membership of more than 3 000.

Mr Cuthbert Nyaruvenda, the association’s vice president, said ZINPA will soldier on without Sekuru Chisanyu.

“We are still in a period of mourning. However, as an association, we agreed that we will not disappoint the spirit of our departed president by abandoning the good work that he pioneered,” Nyaruvenda, who is the founder of the Sangano Dzvene Revapostori Church, said.

Nyaruvenda is running the affairs of the association together with Mbuya Sarudzai Jaravaza, a Mbare-based traditional healer.

Sekuru Chisanyu, who was the first traditional healer to chair the TMPC, was a visionary leader who transformed traditional and faith healing.

Among some of programmes that he spearheaded were training workshops that capacitated traditional and faith healers in their fight against Covid-19.

This workshops gave traditional and faith healers the opportunity to interact with epidemiologists, health statisticians and officials from the Directorate of Traditional Medicine in the Ministry of Health and Child Care.

Under Sekuru Chisanyu, ZINPA also partnered the Environmental Management Agency (EMA) to promote good herbal harvesting techniques and establishment of herbal gardens for traditional healers and herbalists.