Source: ZimLive
Fast growing Zimbabwe diaspora spurs demand for funeral plans.
With the cost of repatriating a body from the UK north of £12,000, funeral cover eases burden on surviving relatives.
LONDON, United Kingdom – In December 2023, Mavis Clinic Manyonga travelled to the Republic of Ireland from Zimbabwe, looking forward to spending the Christmas holidays with her daughter, Valerie Munashe Makuwe, a nurse in town of Letterkenny, in Donegal county.
But there would be no Christmas festivities for mother and daughter. Within just 24 hours of her arrival in Ireland, Manyonga suffered a fatal heart attack, leaving her daughter shattered and heartbroken.
And as if that was not tragic enough, Valerie found herself faced with the challenging prospect of raising the more than US$11,300 needed for the repatriation of her mother’s body back to Zimbabwe for burial.
“The sudden loss has left Valerie inconsolable, and she now faces the immense challenge of bringing her mother’s remains back to Zimbabwe for a proper burial,” read a GoFundMe appeal for donations.
It is this double blow of grieving the passing of a loved one and, at the same time, appealing for help which inspired United Kingdom-based businessman Jeff Madzingo to establish.
Madzingo felt there was need for a sustainable solution which ensured that diasporans did not have to beg for money, or go into debt for funeral expenses as they grieved the passing of loved ones.
“Losing your loved one is traumatic enough, and having to grieve and beg at the same time is double trauma,” Madzingo said, sitting at his Birmingham office.
The traditional burial society or coffin and transport policies provided back home were not fit for this purpose; rather there needed to be a unique and innovative solution designed for diaspora communities who are transnational citizens as they belong to more than one country.
Madzingo, who has degrees in banking and finance, was initially touched by the plight of celebrated Zimbabwean musician Fortune Muparutsa, who died in the United Kingdom in October 2008. Without today’s online crowdfunding platforms such as GoFundMe, Muparutsa’s body spent nine months at a London funeral parlour because the £3,500 needed for repatriation could not be raised.
The personal tragedies of losing his best friend Lincoln Makotore and his brother Bernard Mutubuki less than one year apart in the United Kingdom made Madzingo realise the gravity and depth of the problem diasporans were facing in situations of bereavement.
He got inspired through tragedy to believe that there should be a better solution to the financial pain and havoc caused by diaspora death.
Burial societies and funeral director policies not up to the task.
“Traditional funeral directors’ policies which were developed in the olden days are goods and services based and assumed that the policyholder is born locally, grows up locally, dies locally and gets buried locally which was largely true three decades ago,” said Madzingo.
