“We are not victims. We are endowed with so much potential provided we learn the tools and are exposed to the best examples”. - Chido Govera.
What is it that encourages us in our most despairing moments? How do we hold on to hope when our lives are shaped by things outside our control?
In a society which suggests that the good life is there waiting - all we have to do is seek it out – we often fear that our lives will, despite our best efforts, be disappointing. Why should we expect positive outcomes or ‘a better life’, and how can we dare dream beyond what has been done before? Hope is one of the most valuable and challenging of human qualities. It leads to the most profound advances, and to our most spectacular downfalls.
Chido Govera is a pioneer of hope. She grew up as an orphan in a small village in Zimbabwe. With the death of her mother, Chido turned into a parent at the age of 7, mothering her brother and caring for her nearly blind grandmother. At the age of 8, she had already experienced the worst possible abuse, inflicted by a close uncle. She promised herself then that when she was older, she would save and protect other orphans from experiencing what she, and so many others, had suffered. Turning down a marriage proposal at the age of 11, Chido chose to take fate into her own hands in the most literal way – learning to farm mushrooms from local waste. She changed her journey to one of education and cultivation, and has now taught over 1000 orphans and young women to take responsibility for their lives and see the opportunities around them.
Join The School of Life for this intimate special event as Chido Govera shares her personal journey and explores how we can learn to cultivate opportunity from basic foundations. We will ask Chido how we can look differently at the choices we have in life, how tangible and realistic hope is in today’s society and, beyond a political slogan, what is the future of hope?
| 9/2 East Circular Quay | |
| Circular Quay |