Zim health activist joins Obama scheme

via Zim health activist joins Obama scheme – NewZimbabwe 18/06/2015

WHERE some business school graduates nurse dreams of wealth and glory, Vimbiso Mashumba has been building health care systems to help women and children in Zimbabwe.

The young entrepreneur runs a rural clinic that combats high levels of mother to child transmission of HIV and other HIV related issues.

She also co-founded a school-building program – Love Zimbabwe For Good – which raises support for education by building classrooms, providing textbooks, and ensuring equal educational opportunities for children with disabilities.

“Zimbabwe’s future is in our children’s hands,” she wrote on the Facebook page. “Let’s guarantee it by ensuring that they have access to basic education.”

A video of one of the schools can be seen on the group’s page.

Vimbiso now joins a select group of 500 young African leaders selected for the Mandela Washington Fellowship, the flagship programme of President Obama’s Young African Leaders Initiative.

Obama launched YALI to support young African as they spur growth and prosperity, strengthen democratic governance and enhance peace and security across the continent.

Vimbiso will take her fellowship studies at the University of Texas Austin. The program runs from mid-June to mid-July. Twenty universities across the nation have signed on to the program.

At the conclusion of the academic and leadership institute, all Fellows will participate in a Presidential Summit with President Obama in early August.

This article was originally published by The Seattle Medium.