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IT’S a Tuesday morning and Mercy Banda of Mandava suburb in Zvishavane is busy doing her laundry outside her house while listening to the local radio station, YaFM.
The time is 10.25AM and the volume of Banda’s radio is so high it’s drowning all conversations and noises around her.
Suddenly the radio goes quiet and the woman is about to inquire on what has transpired when her husband, Thomas Hove, comes out of the house complaining.
Hove, a worker at a local mining company, tells his wife he needs to rest before he goes to work for the night shift.
However, the woman protests arguing that she wants to listen to her favourite radio show, the Cholla Bag, which is aired on Zvishavane’s metropolitan radio station, YaFM.
A compromise is reached where the wife agrees to reduce the volume of the radio to allow her husband to catch some sleep.
The show is presented by Ruvarangu Tichareva while Beauty Chikonye, popularly known as Gogo Beau, is the co-host.
Gogo Beau is Banda’s favourite DJ-cum-radio presenter.
Banda and Hove’s situation is a replica of the situation prevailing at most households in the mining town of Zvishavane ever since the coming on air of YaFM.
The privately-owned radio station broadcasts in Zvishavane and its surrounding environs reaching out to over 250,000 listeners.
YaFM is one of the eight commercial radio stations which were licensed to operate by the Broadcasting Authority of Zimbabwe last year.
Since it went on air on September 25 last year, the station has brought excitement to the mining town which in the past has had difficulties in receiving radio signals from national radio stations.
Residents say YaFM is about them, talks to them and in the process it has created its own heroes and celebrities.
One of the presenters who has taken the small Midlands town by storm is Gogo Beau. She has kept listeners captivated with her in-depth knowledge of the predominantly mining community.
Gogo Beau has no broadcasting background and is inspired by her tumultuous personal life experience in her drive for excellence.
She has defied the odds to become arguably one of the most recognised voices on radio in the mining town.
Raised in Gutu in her early childhood, Gogo Beau sat for her O levels in 1996 at Dewure High School. She was already pregnant when she sat for the public examinations and at the age of 17, she had her first child.
After the early pregnancy, Gogo Beau picked up the pieces and 10 years later she was to meet her husband to be. But as fate would have it, her husband, who became the father of her second child, was shot dead in 2006 when he was caught in a cross fire in a shooting incident in Botswana.
After the unfortunate incident, Chikonye, a free spirited and sociable character, packed her bags and headed for Zvishavane where she found herself doing menial jobs. She later managed to strike a deal with a local joint, Uptown Club, where she was engaged as a deejay.
Gogo Beau later left the joint and joined Platinum Club where she was to be discovered by YaFM chairperson, Munyaradzi Hwengwere, whom she fondly refers to as the chairman.
“After my encounter with the chairman, I went to emcee at the Mimosa Awards ceremony in 2014. People were quite impressed. When YaFM was granted the licence to start broadcasting, I was the voice behind the promotional materials for the station.
“I thought my relationship with the chairman would end there since I don’t have a professional qualification let alone O-Level results which I am still to collect up to this day. However, he and the station general manager, Davies Mugadza, assured me that they were interested in my talent and not my qualifications,” said Gogo Beau.
Hwengwere and Mugadza’s gamble in engaging Gogo Beau paid off as the talented, humble and hard-working woman did not disappoint.
Today, Cholla Bag is one of the shows with the highest ratings on YaFM, thanks to Gogo Beau.
Hwengwere, a former chief executive officer of the Zimbabwe Broadcasting Corporation, described Gogo Beau as a “great asset” and the radio station was now using her as a community advocacy person for the station for its outside broadcast shows.
“Gogo Beau has a talent of community engagement and she has done tremendously well for YaFM to be appreciated by a cross section of the community. All I can say is that she is an asset and we will use her as our community advocacy person as the station reaches out to the community.
“She has been in Zvishavane for a long time and knows the community very well. Gogo Beau easily gets along with people and for us to take radio to the people through her will have a huge impact on our listenership since she easily gets along with people,” he said.
Tichareva, Gogo Beau’s co-host of the Cholla Bag show, said her colleague’s knowledge of the community has had an immense impact on the popularity of their show.
“She knows the community very well and sometimes she advises me on how to put across certain issues to the listeners. We have a great working relationship and I would not trade her for anyone,” she said.
Gogo Beau, who just like most women keeps her age a secret, lists her mother and her aunt, a Chiriseri, as her pillars of strength. She regrets falling pregnant at an early age and advised young girls not to fall into the same trap.
“If I could turn back the hands of time, I would change most things in my life including getting pregnant at an early age. If I had backed my talent with some education I might have been a far better person by now.
“I would like to urge young girls to abstain from early marriages. I am now a strong advocate against the practice. During my shows I especially preach against premarital sex and teenage pregnancies during our community engagement tours,” she said.
Zvishavane is a hotspot for early child marriages like other mining towns. According to a research conducted by Plan International Zimbabwe in Kwekwe District, the majority of child marriages are attributed to gold mining activities in the area.
The report notes that 98 percent of urban girls and 94 percent of rural girls in child marriages are married to artisanal miners, commonly referred to as amakorokoza which gives them prestige since the girls are lured by luxuries offered to them by gold panners.
Gogo Beau has taken it upon herself to use the power of the microphone to fight such practices in Zvishavane where YaFM is the buzz word.
The popularity of the Zvishavane radio station should encourage authorities to issue more licences to metropolitan and community radio stations as these can be used as a tool for development.
Online Reporter