SOUNDBITE (Shona) Susan Gomo, Harare resident
“I weighed 86 kilograms and struggled to stand up or breathe even to walk in my house, but ever since I started exercising my body feels lighter and I can walk long distances. Now I’m down to 76 kilograms and I feel good.”
SOUNDBITE (English) Dr Johannes Marisa, public health specialist
“People are just glued to their televisions, people are glued to their phones, to their laptops, by so doing they forget that exercise is of paramount importance in their life.”
SOUNDBITE (Shona) Joseph Nekati
“The motivation that we have to train and exercise with these elderly women comes from my own personal experience. My mother was diagnosed with high blood pressure and sugar diabetes which led her to suffer a stroke, leading to her death on the 5th of January 2023. It pained me so much that I decided together with my colleague here to recruit elderly women to exercise and help them keep fit ….
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fitness club sets up in a Zimbabwe cemetery
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A shortage of available gym space has led a group of seniors in Zimbabwe’s capital to set up a high energy fitness club in a graveyard.
They say dancing amid gravestones is a salutary reminder of how a lack of exercise can shorten their lives and is contributing to the rise in cases of chronic diseases in the country.
STORYLINE:
It’s not often you hear or see a cardio workout here in Harare’s city cemetery, but for the Commandos Fitness Club it’s the perfect spot to keep old age diseases at bay.
Surrounded by rows of graves, 65-year-old Nelly Mutandwa and fellow members launch into an hour-long session of squats, lunges and stretches to upbeat sounds.
For Mutandwa, the daily routine is more than exercise. It’s her lifeline in managing diabetes.
“They are resting,” she says, pointing to the graves. “I just don’t want to join them yet. That means I have to do the hard work here.”
With limited fitness facilities such as gyms in their neighbourhoods, older Zimbabweans are exercising wherever they can.
They aim to combat Africa’s growing problem of chronic diseases like heart problems, high blood pressure and diabetes.
Other groups exercise along highways or disused railway lines.
“I weighed 86 kilograms (189 pounds) and struggled to stand up. I would struggle to breathe just walking in my house. Now, I’m down to 76 kilograms (167 pounds) and I can walk long distances,” says Susan Gomo, a 64-year-old grandmother managing high blood pressure and arthritis.
Globally non-communicable diseases are a leading cause of death according to figures from the World Health Organization (WHO) last December 2024.
It’s responsible 41 million deaths, which 74% of annual fatalities.
Zimbabwe’s Ministry of Health and Childcare says the diseases currently account for about 40% of deaths annually.
The WHO says in sub-Saharan Africa by 2030, deaths from chronic diseases will overtake the number of people killed by communicable diseases such as HIV, tuberculosis and cholera.
According to doctors chronic diseases are also becoming more widespread among younger people.
This growing health burden is causing concern for governments in Africa which the UN says has the fastest growing population.
Johannes Marisa president of the Medical and Dental Private Practitioners of Zimbabwe Association says he and other public health doctors are seeing “a rapid change” in health trends.
“We have noticed a rapid change in some of the non-communicable diseases for example strokes. Long time ago strokes were associated with old age but nowadays you find even a 20 year old getting a stroke,” he says.
He says a lack of exercise and general fitness is to blame as more people become glued to smartphones, or become addicted to substance abuse and unhealthy fast food diets.
According to Marisa: “People are just glued to their televisions, people are glued to their phones, to their laptops, by so doing they forget that exercise is of paramount importance in their life.”
This year the Zimbabwe government’s introducing a 0.5% tax on sales of doughnuts and other foods including tacos, pizza, hot dogs, shawarma, fries, chicken and burgers by retailers to encourage “healthier dietary choices”.
The Commandos crew are doing their best to fight their way to fitness under the guidance of coach Joseph Nekati.
Nekati says whose mother’s stroke in 2023 inspired him to help others and the free club has become a sanctuary for older fitness buffs.
He says: “The motivation that we have to train and exercise with these elderly women comes from my own personal experience. My mother was diagnosed with high blood pressure and sugar diabetes which led her to suffer a stroke, leading to her death on the 5th of January 2023. It pained me so much that I decided together with my colleague here to recruit elderly women to exercise and help them keep fit because these disease like sugar diabetes and high blood pressure are on the increase.”
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