Community
25 September, 2024
New citizen is rapt to be called an Aussie
Phillimon Mapfumo was among about 30 residents who took the citizenship pledge in Mount Isa last week.
When Phillimon Mapfumo tells anyone he has lived in Mount Isa for 14 years but was originally from Zimbabwe, most think the climates are pretty similar.
After all, the snapshots of southern Africa that come to mind are often arid savannah country or harsh stretches of rocky desert.
But Phillimon says in Zimbabwe, you can sit under a tree on a hot summer day, and it feels as refreshing as drinking a cold glass of water.
In Mount Isa, he said the humidity is much thicker and more difficult to get comfortable in.
Ironically, it was the climate that brought Phillimon to Mount Isa in 2010 – he did not want to be in a place that had cyclones.
He watched the spate of floods and cyclones that plagued Queensland in the years prior while studying a postgraduate degree in social work in Victoria and he believed – having never visited our city – that Mount Isa sounded like a place he would be able to keep high off the ground in relative safety.
On his arrival, he discovered this wasn’t necessarily true.
But, like so many before him, the spirit of the Mount Isa community and the strong Catholic links among social service providers made him decide to settle down in the Outback.
Phillimon was among about 30 residents who took the citizenship pledge at the new Centennial Place in Mount Isa to formally become an Australian last week.
Adding to the special occasion was that his two young children, Tawana and Kai-Dane, also became citizens at the same time.
Like the story of all those who took the pledge that night – it is a difficult task to sum up the journey of any person who arrives from a foreign land and builds a new home from scratch.
But, needless to say, Phillimon has been a travelling man for most of his life.
Born on a farm on the outskirts of the Zimbabwean capital, Harare, his youth was a hardscrabble existence in family small-acre farming – using animals to toil in the paddocks and hand-picking the cotton crops.
He had been dreaming of becoming the first in his family to attend college when his father was killed in a bus crash at Chipuriro, west of the capital, which claimed the lives of another 90 farmers travelling for a field day.
The impact of the tragedy led to an education fund being established for the children of those killed.
The fund would provide a scholarship for students who could secure the grades.
He knew he needed a career that would support his family and so he committed to studying what he already understood – agricultural science.
He took two years of vocational college, which qualified him to undertake a full university degree.
Phillimon earned his bachelor’s certificate and returned to the college that had started his educational journey as a teacher.
He next qualified for another scholarship in New Zealand for his Masters in Agricultural Science.
In between stints working for Ministry of Agriculture in Zimbabwe he also decided to pursue practical skills and so travelled the lengths and breadth of New Zealand working as a dairy farm manager.
As anyone aware of dairy work knows, it is a gruelling job, requiring a seven-day-per-week commitment.
He soon looked for other options and settled on social work, which required more study before he landed in Mount Isa.
Phillimon spent more than a decade working for Centacare before moving on to North West Queensland Indigenous Catholic Social Services, where he assists homeless youth and those trapped in the justice system.
“The social service providers in Mount Isa believe that all transformation comes from a spiritual connection,” he said.
“When I help people, I often give guidance by telling them that I would provide the exact same advice to my own brother or sister – it is the highest form of advice I can provide.
“In a small community like Mount Isa I can see the children I helped as they grew up – I see them at the skate park or the supermarket and I can see how far they have travelled in their own lives.
“And it still makes me so happy every time.”