Jairos Jiri MBE (26 June 1921 – 12 November 1982) was born in the district of Bikita, then Southern Rhodesia now Zimbabwe.
Jairos grew up herding cattle and learning to write in the sand with sticks or his fingers or on rocks with charcoal.
His community was poor and overcrowded after people were moved by white settlers from good land a few decades before he was born.
He was motivated to help, but he was only a gardener working for white families and at times a newspaper vendor or deliverer who used an employer's bicycle.
The organisation was registered as Bulawayo and Bikita Physically Defective Society,[3] but later changed to Jairos Jiri Association for the Rehabilitation of the Disabled and the Blind.
He had to overcome numerous bureaucratic hurdles as a black person registering a first charity organization in colonial Rhodesia.
The first committee was made up of Stephen Kwenda (Secretary), Fabian Dururu (Treasurer), and members Job Mapfinya and Jacob Mufute.
After hard years of setting up a new organisation, in 1950 the first skills training workshop was held with the support of Bulawayo City Council.
The art center outlet for the association quickly achieved prominence and by the 1960s was a prime source of curios for tourists.
By 1974 the centers had expanded and diversified to include homes for the disabled, and legal representation was gained locally and in the United Kingdom.
Other awards included:[4] The Zimbabwean disability movement for equality was born in institutions run by Jairos Jiri in 1975 but he did not support it.
It takes a man of great compassion and courage to assume responsibility for such people and to break down the barriers and attitudes of society towards them, and in doing so, restore to human dignity and rightful place in the community.
He has left a tangible legacy to the nation and all of us inherit the Jairos Jiri Association with gratitude and pride in its achievements to date".
He lived with his last wife Ethel Jiri, their seven daughters: Patricia, Patience, Precious, Primrose, Priscilla, Penelope Pamela who was 11 days old when he died in 1982.
Ethel Jiri died from throat cancer and was buried alongside her husband in Bikita – Mutenyami village.