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Resolves

Factual: Life Stories

People reflect on how they will do things differently after living with a deadly virus.

In a series of special programmes recorded as the world gradually ‘unlocks’ during the Covid 19 crisis, we hear from people of all kinds, experiencing life on different continents, in different countries, in rural and urban societies, reflect on aspects of their lives and determine ways in which they want to do something differently. They offer up small and large initiatives; acts that give expression and focus to the change they are undertaking. These echo the Resolves that each of us will also make in recognition of our own preoccupations given the charge of life and the proximity to death, seemingly closer, in the presence of the disease.

We hear Resolves that will bring about a greater awareness of the natural world or the decision to provide mobile healthcare to giving school pupils new educational structures. We also hear the frustration of young Zimbabwean Anele Matshiselaa  who sees the terrible deterioration of health and the natural environment but it has nothing to do with Covid 19 – this is the long term drought that has bought the country to its knees and is the cause of people crying that they would rather die of the virus rather than desperate days of contamination and dehydration without water. He determines an important change in his work in wildlife research and management.

Resolvers include Primatologist Frans de Waal (US), Olympic Gold Medallist Sally Gunnell in the UK, Head Teacher Caroline Hodges (UK), International curator Juliana Engberg (NZ) and Environmental Journalist Gayathri Vaidyanathan (India).

Resolves: Resolves: Anele Matshiselaa

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04/07/2020 GMT

Anele Matshiselaa

BBC World Service - Resolves, Resolves, Anele Matshiselaa

A 27-year-old wants more Zimbabweans to discover their native wildlife

Anele Matshiselaa, a 27-year-old coming out of lockdown in Bulawayo, Zimbabwe, resolves to convince more local people to visit the wildlife parks across the country.

Anele Matshiselaa, a 27-year-old wildlife resources manager coming out of lockdown in Bulawayo, Zimbabwe, resolves to convince more local people to visit the wildlife parks across the country.
 
“Without tourists from Europe, America and Asia, we won’t be able to maintain animal safety and security” he says. “It’s time for indigenous Zimbabweans to see the zebras, lions, rhinos and elephants for themselves.” He is spurred on by seeing his friends penniless, made worse by the Covid-19 crisis, though it’s the longer term consequences of a two-year drought, which has devastated crops and livelihoods, bringing the country to its knees. “We haven’t had water to wash our hands… there are people who say they would rather die of Covid than endure this impossible life.”

His efforts to encourage locals to the wildlife parks begin at home with his family, and his method of enticement includes the possibility of seeing their ancestral totem, the elephant.

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