Tsitsi Masiyiwa, the Founder & Co-Chair of Highlife Foundation

Tsitsi Masiyiwa is an African philanthropist and the founder and co-chair of Higherlife Foundation, a non-profit operating in Zimbabwe. She is wife to Strive Masiyiwa a telecoms mogul who is founder and chairman of Econet Wireless International a global telecommunications group.

Tsitsi Masiyiwa Biography

Tsitsi was born 5 January 1965, in Harare Zimbabwe and youngest of five girls. She attended her primary and secondary school education in Zimbabwe. She completed parts of her primary education at Chishawasha primary school.

The remaining part of her primary and secondary education was completed at the Dominican Convent in Harare Zimbabwe. During her studies, Tsitsi was an avid hockeyand basketball player, representing Zimbabwe schools at regional tournaments. She attained an MBA from the University of Zimbabwe.

She is currently executive chair and co-founder at Delta Philanthropies and Higherlife Foundation, and she sits on the board of directors at Co-Impact, a global philanthropic collaborative.

In late October 2022, she launched the Africa Gender Initiative, which plans to raise $50 million within the next few years from African philanthropists to support Co-Impact’s $1 billion gender fund. In the past few months,the Africa Gender Initiative has already raised $5 million.

Co-Impact’s Gender Fund provides funding primarily to women-led, local organizations tackling systemic gender-based issues in the key areas of health, education, and economic opportunity in the Global South. In Africa the Gender Fund will focus on Kenya, South Africa, Ghana, Nigeria, Côte d’Ivoire and Senegal.

Tsitsi Masiyiwa Children

Tsitsi Masiyiwa and her husband Strive have six children:

• Elizabeth Tanya
• Sarah
• Vimbai
• Moses
• Joanna
• Esther

Her career

Tsitsi Masiyiwa started working in philanthropy in the early 1990s through the work of her husband, Strive Masiyiwa, in the telecommunications business in Zimbabwe. During that time, the country was gripped by the HIV/AIDS pandemic and many families lost breadwinners.

The impact of the pandemic touched the heart of Tsitsi Masiyiwa and she started supporting the children of employees and community members that would have passed on due to the HIV/AIDS pandemic.

In 1994 Tsitsi was appointed Executive Director and Head of Empretec Zimbabwe; a joint programme sponsored by the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) and the Government of Zimbabwe, through the Zimbabwe Investment Centre (ZIC).

The programme’s goal was to help develop indigenous entrepreneurial capabilities, encourage linkages between SME’s and larger transnational corporations. Stimulate cross-border ventures within the Southern African region, and build institutional foundations to help promote SME development.

Her Philanthropic Activities

Tsitsi Masiyiwa began her philanthropic activities in Zimbabwe during the early 1990s following the HIV/AIDS epidemic that affected the country.

• She is a founding board member and the current Board Chair of the African Philanthropy Forum
• A Trustee of the Legatum Institute, the END Fund, and UNICEF’s Generation Unlimited Initiative
• A member of the Sesame Workshop Global Advisory Group
• The International Advisory Board for Texas A&M University
• The Yale Institute for Global Health Advisory Board,
• Africa University Board
• The Prince’s Trust International West Africa Advisory Board
• The Kenjin-Tatsujin International Advisory Council.

Tsitsi and her husband, Strive Masiyiwa, have been signatories to the Giving Pledge since 2014. In 2017, Tsitsi established Delta Philanthropies, as a vehicle for impact investing and grant making.

Honours & Awards

In 2016, Morehouse College, an all-male institution and one of America’s oldest historically black colleges, presented Tsitsi Masiyiwa with an honorary doctorate of Humane Letters for her work in continuing to support the orphaned and vulnerable African children with a focus on education, healthcare and technology.

She was also given an Honorary Doctorate degree from Africa University in Mutare, Zimbabwe. She also received the Champions for Change Award for Leadership from the International Center for Research on Women (ICRW).

Tsitsi and her husband Strive Masiyiwa were awarded “the Points of Light Award” on 13th June 2018 by Theresa May, the British Prime Minister, for their commitment to improving the learning opportunities of underprivileged children across Africa. The award recognizes outstanding volunteers who are making a change in their community and inspiring others.

Tsitsi Masiyiwa Foundation

In 1996, she co-founded ‘Higher Life Foundation’, a non-profit organization that has heavily invested in Africa’s future through education. The foundation has (in)directly helped over 250,000 children to access educational services. Her foundation has become one of the largest scholarship program providers in Africa and thousands of children have gone on to receive tertiary scholarships to study at some of the top universities in the world.

In addition to supporting educational initiatives, Higher Life Foundation also supported the response to the Cholera outbreak in Zimbabwe in 2008; it also assisted in the resuscitation of operations of the College of Medicine in Zimbabwe in the 2008-2010 period and made provision for food packs to starving families during drought periods.

Tsitsi’s work through the foundation has had massive impact on the livelihood of the African population. The foundation recently streamlined its strategy and operations to focus on identifying and nurturing highly talented orphans and vulnerable children to fulfill their potentials through education. It has quite an expansive reach and currently has in-country presence in Zimbabwe, Lesotho and Burundi.

Tsitsi co-founded Muzinda Hub, an entrepreneurship and innovation project based in Harare, Zimbabwe, an initiative supported by Econet Zimbabwe. Her relentless efforts in promoting the use of technology in education also led her to develop ‘Ruzivo’, an online interactive digital learning platform targeted at primary and secondary school students. The platform reinforces the use of blended learning models in class.

In December 2018, Tsitsi Masiyiwa closed her Twitter account, following alleged cyberbullying from Zimbabweans after she had tweeted something which attracted a backlash. Her husband, Strive Masiyiwa, later closed his Twitter account too after he commented that some Zimbabweans had cyberbullied his wife off the social network