Mabvuku

Mabvuku

Mabvuku is a high-density suburb in the Harare Metropolitan Province. Mabvuku is grouped into Old Mabvuku and New Mabvuku. Old Tafara and New Tafara. The suburb is 17 km east of Harare, the capital city of Zimbabwe.

Background

Old Mabvuku dates back to the 1950s, with the oldest school in the suburb, Donnybrook Primary School dating back to 1954. New Mabvuku was built starting 1972 by the Salisbury city council. Mabvuku was the home of the VaShawasha people before Zimbabwe was colonized. The Shawasha people of the Soko Mbire clan settled in this area c300years ago. Mabvuku is the native home of these people. The ancestors of the Shawasha people are commemorated in the street and road names of Old Mabvuku, namely, Tingini, Godzonga, Marembo, Chauruka, Nyamare, Nyahuni, Chaitezvi, Nzwere, Shambare and Chatima's compilation of the praise poetry of the Shona give evidence to this.

Mabvuku and Tafara have a high concentration of people of Malawian, Mozambique and Zambian origin who migrated to seek work mostly before independence. They were mainly employed as domestics for the nearby suburbs of Highlands, Greendale, Msasa etc., with some working in the industrial area of Msasa and the nearby (1 km north) Portland cement factory. With expansion in numbers in recent years the people of Mabvuku have found some of them working as far afield as Willowvale and Workington (Harare) industrial areas to the west of Harare. In the seventies and eighties, it was not unusual to see Nyau (Chigure) dancers, or Muganda extravaganza's owing to the high population of foreign origin. The concept of burial societies, originating in ethnic communities has had general adoption by the Zimbabwean population.