Born and bred in Chiweshe Rural area, Respect Musiyiwa has had his own share of misfortunes whilst growing up. He was born of a 15-year-old mother and 18year old father. He lost his father to HIV/AIDS when he was only 10 years old. His uneducated peasant mother struggled to pay his school fees and provide for him. Respect managed to come out with flying colours in all his studies. Sadly, he lost his mother to HIV/AIDS when he was still a second year student at the University of Zimbabwe. The death of his mother marked the end of his education and he had to return to Chiweshe to face life all by himself. Social evils related to being an illegitimate child and stigma also brought its package of drawbacks for him. Nonetheless; being an orphan and a school dropout did not make Respect quit; he kept his dream alive. The negativity in his peasant farming community stimulated him to rise above what is often labelled as ‘charity cases’. He was inspired by the diversity, potential and capacity of marginalised communities such as his own and envisioned a world where there is zero hunger and poverty through community based participatory initiatives.
The young man did not waste his time chasing after the wind and job hunting like other young people in his community. Respect opted for innovation and social entrepreneurship; he decided to create something sustainable and beneficial to his community and many other youths who were also like him. He formed a community youth group, Youth Network Club, sadly it was caught up in political chaos and was destroyed. This set back was nothing to him for his determination was strong. He re-strategized and formed the Youth Initiative Against Marginalisation, and was also fought heavily by politicians. His breakthrough came when he founded and registered Centre for Agro-entrepreneurship and Sustainable Livelihoods Trust (CASL Trust).
CASL´s success speaks for itself; it has changed his life and transformed his community. From a poor peasant rural young man, Respect has risen to become a successful social entrepreneur. Respect significantly participated in the Global Entrepreneurship Week Zimbabwe (2012). He scooped the prestigious National Young Social Entrepreneur Award US $5000 grant supported by the Youth Empowerment Transformation Trust to pilot test his social enterprise in 2012. CASL Trust was also awarded a US $50 000 grant from the Global Environment Facility Small Grants Programme- UNDP to launch and market validate his social enterprise in 2013. During the same year he was honoured with the Empretec Trust Scholarship for entrepreneurship development. Also, in 2015 he received the National Young Farmer Innovation Award and participated in the Boost Fellowship for entrepreneurship development. Following his participation in the US Embassy Zimbabwe Social Entrepreneurship Fellowship (2016) Respect was selected to take part in the Young Africa Leadership Initiative (YALI) Southern Africa Fellowship.
In 2016 he received a prestigious MasterCard Foundation Scholarship as an Agricultural Science and Natural Resources student at EARTH University and is expecting to graduate this coming December. Last half of 2019 he had an opportunity to be a short term Plant Physiology Research Scholar at University of Florida. He has made presentations at great platforms and institutions like Michigan State University, Arizona State University, Cornell University and at United Nations Headquarters in New York. In November 2019 he was selected as one of the young talents for UNLEASH Innovation Lab for the SDGs in Shenzhen China. In total he has 20 international awards and honours which includes Net Impact Food Solutions Challenge Finalist 2019, Net Impact Plant Based Fellowship 2020, Cornell University Civic Ecology Lab Climate Online Fellowship 2019, Tony Elumelu Foundation-GIZ Entrepreneur 2018, Green Innovator Award 2018 UNICEF and SNV Zimbabwe, National Finalist Global Future Agro-Challenge 2017 among others.
Musiyiwa represented his community in the following forums; Zimbabwe National Young Leaders Summit (2012), COMESA Youth Summit on Climate Change (2012), National Climate Change Response Strategy Consultations (2013), National Migration Policy Consultations (2015), SADC Regional Water Strategy IV Conference (2015), National Water Policy Conference (2015), Africa Youth Climate Change Conference (2015), 5th Climate Change and Development in Africa Conference (2015), among other several platforms.
Furthermore; he served in the following boards as a youth representative: Zimbabwe Youth Council (Mashonaland Central Province) (2012- 2015), Mvurwi Community Water, Sanitation and Hygiene (WASH) steering committee (2013-2016), Mvurwi Local Environment Action Plan Committee (2014-2016) and in the Mvurwi Disaster and Risk Reduction Committee (2014-2016).