Elements of a winning team

Students at Great Zimbabwe University (GZU) have established themselves as among the most competitive in the country.

Since 2019, GZU students have been outshining their counterparts from other institutions of higher learning in the country, bringing home trophies.

Twenty-three-year-old fifth year Law student from Masvingo, Nontokozo Kelly Moyo, has been a constant participant.

Competitions, she believes, expose one to rigorous pressure, which provokes and triggers off an array of emotions.

One of the most essential elements that participating in competitions brings out in a person has to be continuous learning and improvement at each step during a contest.

But for the GZU students taking part in competitions has become a platform at which to demonstrate spectacular qualities mostly, if not always, gunning for the top position. They believe they are in the ascendancy.

Moyo’s interest in competitions dates back to her high school days, at which point she became a member of the Toastmasters’ Club and in house oratory skills competitions.

Then in 2019 she was part of the GZU’s team that took part in a debating competition to mark celebrations of the International Human Rights Day, during which Zimbabwe joined the rest of the world in commemorating the 61st anniversary of the adoption of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

Memories of that contest remain something “remarkably stiff, though thoroughly exhilarating,” according to Moyo.

Early last year, Students from the Great Zimbabwe University’s Herbert Chitepo Law School took part in the African Regional Rounds of the John Jackson Moot Court Competition.

The competition ran from April 20 to April 25, 2020 and was hosted virtually by the European Law Students’ Association in association with the World Trade Organisation.

The African Regional Rounds of the Competition were initially supposed to be hosted by the University of Nairobi in Kenya, but following the global outbreak of the coronavirus infectious disease-19 (Covid-19), the competition was moved to a virtual platform.

The competition is named after American Professor John Howard Jackson, one of the instrumental figures in the formation of the World Trade Organisation (WTO).

The annual competition brings together students from different parts of the world, who get to argue a simulated case on International Trade Law.

The Herbert Chitepo Law School was the only Zimbabwean university to participate in the competition.

The Faculty was represented by Simbarashe Chigumira and Nontokozo Moyo. The duo performed exceptionally well and managed to reach the final round of the competition where they eventually came runners-up.

In addition to the team being placed second, Simbarashe Chigumira was also given a Best Oralist Award.

The team also qualified for the International Round of the Competition, which included teams from the rest of world.

The Herbert Chitepo Law School is currently the only faculty in the country, which offers International Trade Law as a fully taught module to its students. This exposes the students to a branch of law that is very critical to the development of the country’s economy.

The moot problem comprised wide-ranging topical issues in International Trade Law, such as the withdrawal from Free Trade Areas and the granting of Equivalence Status under the World Trade Organisation’s Agreement on Sanitary and Phytosanitary Measures.

Then in December 2020 GZU Students from The Herbert Chitepo Law School Moot Team, comprising Kundiso Charmaine Rusike, Nontokozo Kelly Moyo, Makomborero Carl Muropa and Nathan Zindikilani, won the final round of the First Anti-Corruption Moot Court Competition.

The Inaugural Corruption & Human Rights Moot Court Competition was organised by Transparency International Zimbabwe and hosted by Great Zimbabwe University just before Christmas.

The GZU team was competing against teams from Midlands State University, University of Zimbabwe and Zimbabwe Ezekiel Gutu University.

In participating in the contests, Moyo believes she gets to sharpen her oratory skills, as well as finding it a great platform to network and learn from a variety of people with a diverse range of capabilities.

The reward for pushing herself and her colleagues to the limit, is preserving GZU’s high profile, visibility and track record.

Apart from their academics, Moyo and her colleagues are addressing the role of students in communities they come from.  Their involvement is in the form of outreach programmes, through which they create awareness about human rights issues and assist communities appreciate issues around family law rights, in particular, and other procedures.

For example, the students enlighten communities on issues of gender violence and assisting women how to report cases of gender based violence, where to go and how to handle such issues.

Life, she believes, is not all a bed of roses, what with all the challenges that confront students these days. But she has found an opportunity to develop an interest in environmental rights, apart from general human rights.

It is an interest that developed after working with people from Advocates4Earth.