admin
Dr Takudzwa Mutsvanga University of Leicester
Sandringham High School last week held their 2016 Speech and Prize Giving Day. Parents came in their numbers to applaud their children’s successes in academics, sports and other co-curricular activities. The Sunday Mail Bridge was there to capture the moments. Of note was the guest of honour that the school chose, Dr Takudzwa Mutsvanga, a former student of Sandringham aged only 29 but a great inspiration for the students.
Dr Mutsvanga was born in Chegutu on the 25th of April 1987. He attended Hartley 1 Preparatory School, and later Chegutu High School where he became the 1st student to attain 9As at GCSE Ordinary level. In 2003 he enrolled for GCSE Advanced level sciences at Sandringham High School, where he went on to attain 20 points (4As), becoming the best student in Zimbabwe. In March 2006 His Excellency President R G Mugabe invited him for a mentorship luncheon with the first family at the state house.
In 2006 he enrolled for Bachelor of Medicine & Surgery degree at the University of Zimbabwe. He went on to be elected as the Student Representative Council President for the year 2007-2008. In 2009 at the height of dollarisation he displayed his entrepreneurship by founding his first company, Crown Printers (Pvt) Ltd, which he however went on to handover total ownership to employees to enable him to complete his degree. In 2011 he graduated with Honours in Medicine and Gynecology.
From 2011 -2012 he was an intern at Chitungwiza Central Hospital. He founded Bio+ech Health Group in 2013 with two employees while concurrently fulfilling his duties as the Government Medical Officer at Makumbe District Hospital (largest district in Zimbabwe.) In 2014 he, together with his team, founded Queenmary Bio+ech Clinical Laboratory in Kadoma which is currently the largest specialist diagnostic laboratory serving the Mashonaland west population.
In 2015 he and his team founded Platinum Medical Centre a subsidiary of Bio+ech Health Group, which caters for Zimplats mine employees and the surrounding rural communities at large. In December 2015 he and his team went on to expand Bio+ech health group by opening Harare Bio+ech a multidisciplinary laboratory.
February 2016 they further expanded Bio+ech Health Group by launching East Isle Pharmaceuticals in Ngezi. To date Bio+ech Health Group has a staff compliment of 34 permanent employees including four medical doctors, various medical personnel, technicians and operational staff across Zimbabwe.
Dr Mutsvanga continues to pursue various business ventures and is currently studying Management of Business Administration with the University of Leicester. He aspires to be a specialist Orthopedic Surgeon. Below is the speech that he presented to inspire the young people present at the Sandringham Speech and Prize Giving Day . . .
Thank you for the honour of addressing this particular gathering today. It gives me pleasure to congratulate all our prize winners as well as every student who performed to the best of his/her ability. I’d like today’s celebration of achievement to also serve as an opportunity for inspiration especially to those who might have resigned themselves to a prizeless level of performance. It would be grave to reduce this event to a celebration of only the top achievers and award recipients.
Today is very much about everyone of you taking stock of the results of his labour, attitude and motivation. Today is about affirmation and seeking inspiration. It is about the future in-as-much as it is an acknowledgement of the past. But most importantly it is about the present.
Today I want you to realise the power of choice. Choice distinguish us from animals. It allows us to go beyond instinct, need and desire and makes determination, striving and excelling available to each of us. The clever student is one who consciously makes clever choices. Choices must be followed up by concrete actions aligned with that choice.
I made a choice that I want to be the high scorer at Sandringham. I further made a choice to enroll and study medicine and surgery at UZ. During this phase I noted the decay in our health service delivery system and therefore I made a difficult choice to not only practice as a Medical practitioner but rather to venture into the uncertain world of business and entrepreneurship.
What exactly is an entrepreneur? Anyone who takes an informed risk in the hope of getting away with it. Thus entrepreneurship can be defined to mean any goal one sets for himself, a goal that has a risk of failure. An entrepreneur is one who is happy to work while others sleep. An entrepreneur’s drug is risk. He/she is addicted to this drug called success.
S/he knows one fact and that is I WILL MAKE IT, MAYBE NOT TODAY or TOMORROW- BUT ONE DAY! In any goal there are only two outcomes; to Win or to learn. There is never a loss. S/he takes action when others hesitate. S/he opens the textbook when others daydream, s/he holidays in the library when others busk.
I joined Sandringham in 2004 for A-level as a young boy from a high density school in Chegutu. Because I came from a humble background my father escorted me by bus and as I set foot on the mission school my remarks to him where: “Dad I feel we have moved 60 years back in time.”
This was due to the dilapidated state that was common amongst mission schools during the hyperinflation ERA. The first assignment I set for myself was to question F6 students doing sciences about the feasibility of scoring 15 points. I was soon to learn that this was an impossible feat because in physics, the ceiling was always a B due to a ZIMSEC curse on our center. Shaken I made a choice that I am different and I am not only going to break that curse, but I will also take another risk – of adding a fourth subject hoping against odds to get away with it.
Holidays would usher in a routine of family fire place discussions about how my next fees would be sourced. This served as a stick, a very good stick to make sure that failure was never an option. For two years my Gorongoza room had four bar graphs to closely monitor my daily study per subject.
With the help of a dedicated and industrious crop of career teachers; me and my fellow classmates went on to produce remarkable results. I scored 4 As. This was something that was unheard of during the time to the extent that His Excellency President Mugabe invited me for a day at Statehouse with his family.
College life brought with itself hard lessons, chief amongst them that success is not limited to academic achievement. I joined student politics and formed various youth organisations to improve my lagging social skills. Upon earning my Bachelors of medicine and Surgery, there were more disappointments. The health system was broken; the payslip was a far cry from decent and the social impact I could make was next to minimal. I slowly became a part of the broken system.
Back in 2014, I made a difficult and bold choice to resign from my comfortable government post, government perks and my allocated mansion. I faced months without the assured government salary, as I set out to found my own functional Health Organization.
Today I am the group CEO of Biotech Health Group, an organization composed of five different companies employing doctors, laboratory scientists, pharmacists and various other professionals. We have a staff compliment of over 30 employees across various towns in Zimbabwe. At the age of 29 I mix and mingle on business with fellow CEOs who are well above 50 years of age.
This feat has been possible because of the blast furnacing experience and exposure at the best school in the country, Sandringham High School. In summary the tools necessary for success are as follows;
Academic tool– knowledge is power and without a qualification, chances of success are next to nil. This is a crucial must have tool.
Soft skills– these are personal attributes that enable someone to interact effectively and harmoniously with other people and the environment. For one to succeed you need to have the necessary social skill to negotiate through the complex world of work and industry. Gone are the days of this unkempt whizkid who lacks discipline, morals and is highly egocentric. Dambudzo Marechera is an example.
Digital skills– ignore technology and therefore perish. Modern day society is now digital. One has to be able to convert whatever skill/venture you have onto the digital sphere. Be it a garden boy seeking employment or a Surgeon in theatre, the internet age has come and the new definition of literacy is Computer coding. How many of you are literate?
To conclude, I am happy that the school under the stewardship of Mr Mahaso continues to grow to greater heights. Believe me, hundreds of Sandringham High School alumini are seeded across various sectors in industry. This is great testament of the immense discipline, and I repeat Discipline with capital letter D that my former Head and his team inoculated into our then reluctant DNA.
Today the school boasts of a brand new look, new school furniture , newly constructed staff houses, ablution blocks, livestock project and even tiled roads! This remarkable development can only be a sign of excellent administration and leadership skills. Let me end my presentation by a dedication to the parents, without whose sacrifices, these great accomplishments at SHS would not have materialized.
Unexpressed gratitude is like a gift, wrapped but not presented. I dedicate my humble success to my dedicated former teachers, the ancillary staff, the remarkable school administration and my fellow students with whom we embarked on this journey.
Students, YOU CAN SEND YOUR ARTICLES THROUGH E-MAIL, FACEBOOK, WHATSAPP or TEXT Just app Charles Mushinga on 0772936678 or send your articles, pictures, poetry, art . . . to Charles Mushinga at [email protected] or [email protected] or follow Charles Mushinga on Facebook or @charlesmushinga on Twitter. You can also post articles to The Sunday Mail Bridge, PO Box 396, Harare or call 0772936678.
Online Reporter