Celebrating International Women's Day: Zimbabwean women firsts

Today (8 March) is International Women’s Day. To celebrate the day here is a list of Zimbabwean women who were first in something:

1. Rita Makarau is the first female Judge President of Zimbabwe.
2. Joice Mujuru was the youngest cabinet minister in 1980 in independent Zimbabwe. She is also the first female to be sworn in as the first ever female Vice President in Zimbabwe after being appointed in September 2004 at Zanu PF’s Congress. She was sworn in on 6 Dec 2004.
3. Joyce Simango, wrote the book Zviuya Zvirimberi, the first novel to be written by a black woman in Rhodesia.
4. Air Zimbabwe female pilots Captains Chipo Matimba and Elizabeth Simbi Petros became the first pilots to fly a Boeing 737 from Harare to Victoria Falls in the country’s first ever all-female flight deck crew.
5. Samantha Kureya aka Gonyeti, in 2017 became the first woman to be nominated for the National Arts Merit Awards (NAMA) under the best Comedian category.
6. Janet Banana became the first ever first lady of Zimbabwe in 1980