Our #WCW today is Chipo Tariro Chung, a Zimbabwean actress and activist based in London, England. Born as a refugee in Dar Es Salaam, Tanzania, she spent her first two years in refugee camps in Mozambique eith thousands of people who were escaping the war in the then Rhodesia.
Chipo was raised in Harare and she attended Dominican Convent High School and developed her acting with the mixed-race theater company Over The Edge. At eighteen, she moved to the United States where her mother, the former minister of education in Zimbabwe Fay Chung, was working for the United Nations.
She first studied at Yale University and then trained as an actress at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art (RADA) in London, graduating in 2003.
Chung began her career with her stage debut as Ophelia in a Nutfield Theater production of Hamlet. She made appearances in The Mayor of Zamalea and Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom at the Liverpool Everyman and Playhouse followed. She also made appearances in Talking to Terrorists in the Royal Court Theater.
In 2011 she had a recurring role in the medieval romance drama series Camelot as Vivian. She also appeared in the first season of Fortitude as Trish Stoddart before winning the role of Mary Magdalene in the TV series, A.D The Bible Continues.
Since 2017, Chipo has appeared in a number of Television Serieses including Foundation, Silo where she was a main character, Absentia, Black Cake and more.
In 2014, she was recognized as one of tje BBC’s 100 women. She was nominated for Best Actress at the Zimbabwe International Women’s Awards (ZIWA) in 2015 and she was honoured with a Special Recognition Award for her contribution to Media and the Arts at the Zimbabwe Achievers Awards in London 2017.
Aside acting, Chipo is an activist, she co-founded the charity SAFE-Kenya which develops theatre for social change in Kenya, focusing on HIV education and abandoning Clitoridectomy.
In 2020, she co-chaired British Equity’s Independent Commission on Race Equality, and in 2022 founded the British charity Partnership on Rape Aftercare (PORA), which supports the Adult Rape Clinic in Zimbabwe.
