Chido Govera

Chido Govera is a farmer, campaigner, and educator based in Zimbabwe. The founder of The Future of Hope Foundation, she has promoted mushroom cultivation as a sustainable source of food and income in impoverished regions of the world.

Early life and education Born in 1986 in Zimbabwe, Chido Govera was orphaned at age seven when her mother died from AIDS. She then lived with her grandmother and her brother, but she endured abuse at the hands of family members forcing her to leave school at age nine to work full-time, "digging in people’s fields all to get a small bowl of maize meal". and the ZERI Foundation, There she learn how to colonise oyster mushrooms (Pleurotus ostreatus) using corn stalk waste products. Govera taught mushroom culture from cornstalk waste to people from her native Zimbabwe, and her educational efforts have also included use of coffee waste, and have reached people in Australia, She has been credited with "pioneering new techniques, for example growing mushrooms from coffee grounds for commercial use".

Awards In 2009, Govera received the "Sustainability Award" by the Specialty Coffee Association of America, "for her sustainable project of reusing organic waste from the coffee industry to cultivate mushrooms".