Zim student wins prestigious Harvard award

Zimbabwean student, Rumbidzai Mushavi (23), was adjudged winner of the prestigious Harvard University AMES award. The former Arundel student has sets her sights on raising the standards of primary health care around the world.

"Health is affected by many several things, including income," she said in an interview. "So what you find that people living in poverty often don't have the best health and we are trying to see how empowering the people economically will affect this disturbing trend."

Mushavi will be heading a research project implemented by the Centre for Global Health at the Mbarara University of Science and Technology in Uganda, where she is also studying sustainability of income in supporting health care. The project is based on the poultry farming micro enterprises and water interventions in local villages in Uganda.

"We are implementing poultry farming enterprises and a water intervention in a small village in the south west of Uganda, what we are going to do is we are going to research the impact of those poultry farming micro enterprises on the sustainability of the household incomes," she said.

The project will look at the effects gender imbalances on women's empowerment and their access and use of health care services, she said. It is based on the findings of Professor David Bansberg (Associate Professor, Harvard Medical School) on dispelling the mythical beliefs that Africans health systems suffer because they cannot keep time attributing those health problems to economic constraints.

Mushavi believes that primary health care should be accessible to all and the project not only looks at issues that affect the health delivery system, citing gender imbalance as one of them.

The Ames award is named after two former Harvard university siblings Richard Glover Ames and Henry Russell Ames, who gave their lives to save their father, who was washed overboard during a storm. Every year since, the Ames Award has been given in their memory to recognize one man and one woman who have shown energy in helping others and who exhibit the same heroic character and inspiring leadership of the Ames brothers.

Mashavi left Zimbabwe in 2008 as the country was deciding on reforms to reignite an economy whose decline saw the decline in the quality of service provision in public health institutions and other sectors.

"I didn't come back to Zimbabwe, because of the job situation, maybe if the job situation was great but what came out first was a job offer from a professor I worked with in the past who is now working in Uganda," said Mashavi. "I still want training, I'm hoping that after all those years of training, after all those years of experience in different countries I'll be able to give back to Zimbabwe."

On July 21st she was among several former students at American Colleges talking to high school students about their prospects of pursuing further studies at Harvard University during the Education USA organised American Colleges Fair at Prince Edward School.

"I like the institution because it has a tradition of excellence," she says of her former college. "It is not going to hold your hand through the process but is trying to develop leaders in every single field," she noted.

In Picture: Rumbidzai Mashave talks to Zimbabwean students about life at Harvard University during the American Colleges Fair held at Prince Edward School on July 21st.