ABSTRACT
Following on from Chinyika, as a community-based initiative, also with strong cultural, if not altogether integral, overtones, the Muda Community-Based Tourism (CBT), activated by corporate executive and now also social entrepreneur Kennedy Mukuruwambwa Mandevani, stands to benefit the community, the business sector represented by Tour Africa Travel, as well as Government, represented by the Zimbabwean Tourism Authority (ZTA) and the National Museums and Monuments of Zimbabwe (NMMZ). With his burning desire to see Zimbabwe re-admitted into the international family of nations, Mandevani is determined to see poverty reduction in rural communities as they take charge of their destiny by utilising their local resources and heritage. For the Muda Community, Mandevani sees this happening through Integral Tourism. Through this he envisages the creation of a stable business arrangement aligned with social benefit. As such he sees unity of purpose as the community and the tourist should become inseparable. The contribution to the Zimbabwean phoenix rising emanates from the fact that tourism is one of the largest contributors to the national GDP. The potential to use Muda as a model and develop other such communities and sites for tourism is a potentially big development in the tourism sector. The project also serves as a means of reconciling two worlds, that of the indigenous spirit of the nation, represented by Chaminuka, and the exogenous pioneer column, represented by the bridge crossing. Mandevani emulates Chinyika where Muchineripi and Kada, and later Kundishora, activated community building. In that capacity, and altogether, they provide the grounds for self-sufficiency for the Zimbabwean phoenix rising.
