Biography

It was April of 2006; I was chosen to represent my village in the Mhakwe Youths Leadership Training workshop which was facilitated by the W.K. Kellogg Foundation. After the workshop, I was told among others to submit my curriculum vitae to the facilitator. In July 2006, I was invited to attend my first community thought leadership workshop in Johannesburg—that is when my awesome KSAL journey began. The series of leadership workshops really had an impact on my life, especially my personal development. I improved my self-esteem and gained confidence to speak in front of big audiences through the leadership workshop where we were all expected to give a presentation on an assigned topic. I learned quite a number of things throughout the KSAL journey, the greatest of all being the African sprit of Ubuntu. Ploughback made a difference in my life and deepened my love for the community. We each had time to do projects in our communities and by then were interacting and fully engaged in community activities. We also had a chance to learn different useful ideas from our elders, especially the village heads. During the workshop, I received crucial materials that are helping me to this day. The use of modern technology really put us on track with the world’s changing technology. We had a chance to watch and listen to some of the world’s great motivational speakers and inspirational leaders through videos provided in workshops. We also learnt different aspects of life, like how to overcome culture shock, since most of us were studying in foreign countries. With all the aid I got from the programme, I secured a BSc in business administration from CIDA City Campus. With my stipend, I also managed to educate all my siblings and help my extended family start goat- and chicken-rearing projects. I also managed to secure food for the family, since we had a food crisis in Zimbabwe at that time. In a nutshell, my KSAL journey was very awesome. We learmed a lot of things, we met great people like Professor Mbigi, we worked with very competitive teams, and all the Fellows were great, especially the 2007 cohort.