Grace Life Foundation (GLF) is a social impact organisation that was established in 2018. The initiative was founded by Brian Munyawarara, the CEO of Raysun Capital, a fintech and credit platform for transport operators.
Now, I was a little puzzled at how the CEO of a fintech firm got involved in philanthropic work. That’s not to say that something like this is entirely new but in Zimbabwe (and in my experience) it’s pretty rare, particularly for a 28-year-old executive.
“I feel that as a generation we have to play a part in shaping the future we hope to see. My profit generating businesses exist to be able to fund the philanthropic work that we do.
Brian Munyawarara, Founder of Grace Life Foundation.
Luckily, Grace Life Foundation had a Fundraising Gala last week Friday and I got some answers from Brian himself. The event was held to celebrate the five years that Grace Life Foundation has been in existence, all it has achieved in the last half-decade and highlight the three simple pillars that have kept it going for this long.
“We have three pillars that we work with, education, health and food security. The foundation has been working in Harare and the peri-urban areas surrounding the capital“
Brian Munyawarara, Founder of Grace Life Foundation.
Feed a soul
The first pillar according to GLF will aim to provide 200,000 households with balanced meals by 2025. They are doing this through greenhouse farming initiatives in partnership with local communities.
“This provides a transfer of skills by training locals and as GLF, we take the products to market for the community and assist with further solutions to alleviate any other hardships“
GLF
GLF has a program like this running with Chinyaradzo Children’s Home in Highfields Harare.
Educate a soul
“Under this program we have been assisting vulnerable children who can’t afford a basic education due to many different reasons. We have been awarding scholarships to children who we also assist with other training and life skills to increase their chances of success going forward.”
GLF
Through GLF’s Education program they have been able to educate 100 students. And this year, one of the beneficiaries of the program graduated from MSU with a degree in banking and finance.
The foundation has high ambitions because it wants to increase its beneficiaries to 1,000 by 2025.
Care for a soul
The last pillar that Grace Life Foundation has is its health program which it says is providing necessary health support in the communities it operates.
“Our objective is to partner with local clinics in the provision of sufficient primary care for beneficiaries. We are currently developing mechanisms that will ensure consistent access to healthcare and that beneficiaries are in a position to be assisted”
GLF
What about the rest of Zimbabwe?
Zimbabwe is a very big country with a lot of needs and issues so why just Harare and the surrounding areas? Well, according to Brian Munyawarara, they are concentrating the resources they have to make the most impact.
“When you are doing philanthropic work you need to be targetted to be impactful. So what we did, especially with education, is we went to the Ministry of Education and we asked them on which particular areas they would recommend for us to assist”
“The Permanent Secretary wrote to us and gave us recommendations and that was an entry point for us. But now as we were doing the work, we realised that its such a huge area that we need to be mindful of in order to properly address as may issues as we can”
But he went on to say that the next five years is when they are looking to expand Grace Life Foundations’ scope of operations.
That expansion will be aided by GLF’s partners including companies like Old Mutual and many others…
