"Tobias Mupfuti was eight years old when he found himself homeless and living on the streets of Victoria Falls after his father had rejected him and his mother was too poor to feed or clothe him or send him to school. He survived on food handouts from tourists shopping in the Zimbabwean resort town. The film premiered at the Tribeca film festival in New York in June 2025. Photograph: Handout"
"After learning to box, he started to train alone in the bush along the road to Victoria Falls airport in his early 20s. Several children started following him and he was offered the chance to use a classroom at Mosi-oa-Tunya high school as a boxing training facility. He later bought his own land and built a gym to give children like him a chance nearly 5 million children live in poverty in Zimbabwe, with 1.6 million in extreme poverty, according to Unicef."
Tobias Mupfuti became homeless at eight after family rejection and extreme poverty, surviving on tourist handouts in Victoria Falls. He learned boxing for self-defence, trained alone in the bush, and attracted children who followed him. He used a classroom at Mosi-oa-Tunya high school, later bought land, and built the Victoria Falls Boxing Academy to shelter, feed, and educate underprivileged children. The academy trains about 40 children for free, houses eight, and is funded by well-wishers and a paid adult gym. His story inspired the short film Rise, which premiered at Tribeca in June 2025 and became the first Zimbabwean film to be considered for an Oscar.
Read at www.theguardian.com
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