The Two events
OPENING EVENT
We hosted Fadzai Mahere at our opening event in conjunction with the Law Students council. I am going to be brutally honest with you on this and most of you who are familiar with Zimbabwean politics might have already had this thought prior to the event. As much as we are a society which aims at changing the narrative and are committed to seeing our country better, for a moment we got stark between a rock and a hard place deciding on whether it was a right decision to bring Fadzayi Mahere. We did not want anyone thinking that we have gone political, and we are choosing any political sides, but in the end, we decided that we could not lose the opportunity of hearing and borrowing wisdom from the renowned Fadzayi Mahere for the fear of what people might think. We decided to work with the Law students council as we figured some law students might also find her knowledge and experience in her career as a human rights lawyer of use to them. We also wanted to make sure as many people benefit from this rare opportunity. During the interview she answered questions ranging from her personal life, her time in university and in it all she afforded us with one or two lessons from her life that left everyone encouraged. She told us about her time at the Cambridge University as a Zimbabwean which is somewhat a similar position, we are in. She reminded us to take every opportunity that we get and to try and be the most exceptional and not waste the opportunity of studying in a foreign country with the diverse network it allows you to create and obviously because a lot of sacrifices are made in terms of funding in order to study in a foreign country. At the end of the interview, we had a live question and answer session in which people asked Fadzayi questions in the chatroom which she responded gladly.
Alumni event
One of our goals for Zimsoc this year was to engage with our Alumni network and the Alumni event was one of the steps we made in terms of achieving that goal. What better way to learn how to succeed at the University of Cape Town as a Zimbabwean student than from someone who has already done so successful. We hosted Ralph Mupita who is currently the president of and chief executive of the MTN Group. We are truly indebted to Mr Ralph Mupita for taking time out of his busy schedule for the event. We had a similar structure as our opening event. Mr Ralph Mupita shared with us experiences of his time at the University of Cape Town. How he managed to juggle working without getting paid sometimes, staying at the top of his schoolwork whilst managing to socialise and creating a diverse network of friends who aligned with his purpose. He too left such a positive inspiration on all those who attended the event by offering advise on how to maximize your potential in and out of UCT. He left us advise that we should take as many job opportunities as possible we can get even if we don’t get paid for them sometimes. One could write a book on what he shared but we will leave a link to the video recording of the event for you to hear for yourself.
Finally We have posted the two-video recordings on the Vula site, and you can also follow the links below in case you missed the two events. We hope to more such great events that impact on lives and more engagement form the members of the society and even non-members and to #changingthenarrative
Link to the Alumni event
The recording of the opening event is on the Vula site
Mitchel Muza, Marketing and Communications Director.
