Recalling Papa Hillie

In August 2020 we lost a young icon in disability circles. Hillary Mlambo succumbed to a short illness. Many of us know Hillary as an actor who featured as a Landlord on popular local Soap Opera, Wenera. However there was more to his life and so little of his story has been told. We at Thisability Hub therefore have decided to honour him with this article.

Hillary Mlambo was born with a disability in the late 1980s. Like many children Hillary attended school. He went to St Giles Primary School, a school in the Milton Park suburb of Harare.

St Giles Primary school is a School that has specialist services that cater for children with various disabilities which include; physiotherapy, occupational therapy and speech therapy apart from offering the usual school curriculum. The goal of the school is to produce well rounded children with disabilities who are able to maximize their abilities and harness their other talents apart from just focusing on academics.

While at St Giles, Hillary was exposed to music and drama. As a child he would frequently participate in music and drama programmes offered by the school. It was during these days that Hillary discovered that he had a natural talent for the arts.

After finishing primary school, Hillary moved on to secondary school. For his secondary (High School) education, Hillary attended King George VI School which is in the Khumalo Surburb of Bulawayo. King George VI School is a specialist high school for children with disabilities. The services and goals are similar to St Giles. While at King George VI School Hillary managed to sail through and complete his secondary education.

After completing High School Hillary acquired a Public Address (P.A) System and started a career as a Disk Jockey, his stage name was Papa Hillie. As a D.J, Hillary would perform at private functions such as; weddings, parties and corporate events. He also was a regular DJ at functions held at his former primary school, St Giles where he would offer his services free of charge. While DJing Hillary furthered his education and obtained qualifications in Graphic Design. He then put these newly acquired skills into practice through doing freelance Graphic Design work. Many a times he would offer his services free of charge.

While furthering his studies, Hillary joined the Leonard Cheshire Young Voices Harare Group. During his stint at Young Voices, Mr Mlambo interacted with St Giles Primary former schoolmate Tapiwa Tsikai. During the early days of the Young Voices Project Tapiwa Tsikai was the Coordinator of the Young Voices Project.

The Young Voices project is a Leonard Cheshire Disability run program that seeks to empower youth with disabilities through capacity building to become self advocates.

Through involvement with Young Voices, Hillary realised that there was so much that needed to be done to empower people with disabilities in Zimbabwe.

Hillary then decided to embark on a career path in media that would enable him to use media as a tool to raise awareness of disability. His big break came when he was cast in local television soap opera Wenera. In this soap opera he played a Landlord who was always chasing after tenants who were defaulting on paying their rentals.

Hillary also had a YouTube channel. Through this channel he used his own resources to highlight several different topical issues in a satirical manner.

https://youtube.com/channel/UCEXKBWBoPrvl7d2mTli-VNQ
above is the link to his YouTube channel.

We pay tribute to him as a hub and we would like to publically thank him for his contribution towards fighting for a better quality of life for people with disabilities in Zimbabwe.

Salute!