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Youth Interactive Correspondent
IT’S everyone’s dream to represent one’s institution or country and fly the flag high, but sometimes when such opportunities come one’s way, the reality of resource-deficit can be mind numbing.
Such is the predicament of two Zimbabwean law students.
Nathan Zindikilani from the Great Zimbabwe University (GZU) and Nadia Mtisi from the University of Zimbabwe (UZ) are part of eight students globally who have been selected for an eight-week law internship programme at Georgetown University in the Georgetown neighbourhood of Washington DC in the US.
Georgetown is often regarded as an Ivy — relating to, or characteristic of a group of long-established eastern US colleges and universities widely regarded as high in scholastic and social prestige.
It is consistently placed at the top of US college ranking lists, particularly the school for international affairs.
Proximity to the US’ capital puts Georgetown at the centre of the political world.
The two Zimbabwean students have come face-to face with the reality of resource-deficit in that while their institutions fund the other five students for the programme, the Zimbabweans do not enjoy such support.
However, there is an African proverb that, loosely translated, says it is human nature always to find fresh cause for optimism. Somehow, they are hoping that the stars will smile upon them and they will be part of the programme that starts on June 1, 2022 and runs until July 20, 2022.
Mtisi and Zindikilani were selected from a pool of law students spanning over eight continents and more than a hundred applicants.
They ought to begin interning at the O’Neill Institute for National and Global Health Law, a think-tank based in Washington DC from the beginning of next month June and conclude on July 20.
The programme will enable them to work with research experts in the field of health and international development law.
This presents a first for both the UZ and GZU, as the two universities have never been represented in the interning programme before.
There is much to be gained by the two students in their personal lives from attending the internship programme but also, being community-centred individuals, they believe that the internship will not only benefit them but also help them to contribute meaningfully to their universities and to the legal profession by employing the skills they will acquire.
Zindikilani is a fourth-year student and was a part of the two-member GZU moot court team that won the 2021 ICRC International Humanitarian Law (IHL) national moot court competition sponsored by the Red Cross and Raoul Wallenberg Institute.
The same team will represent the country at the 2022 All-Africa ICRC IHL moot court competition in Arusha, Tanzania.
Since 2018, Zindikilani has worked with a Zimbabwean youth empowerment organisation called Ignite Youth in a voluntary role as head of its flagship entrepreneurship programme, Ignite Influencers.
He has also participated in the Government’s Child Parliament initiative, where he served as a junior senator (2014-2015) and Junior Member of Parliament for Hatfield Constituency as well as Junior Minister of State for Provincial affairs for Harare Metropolitan province (2016-2017).
Mtisi is a third-year student, who has a prolific history in working with civil society organisations.
She is currently a board member at an NGO known as Farming Communities Educational Trust.
Last year, she was the sole representative of the University of Zimbabwe at the UNESCO, Our Lives, Our Rights, Our Futures launch.
She has also engaged in discourse with Members of Parliament regarding Zimbabwe’s current policies on sexual and reproductive health rights, and mental health respectively.
Mtisi was selected by the Global Fund for Children in 2022 as a Spark fund youth panelist.
In 2020, she won the title of Best Speaker at the youth competitions hosted at the SADC People’s Summit.
She was also part of 60 young people from across the world selected to provide recommendations at the Internet Governance Forum 2021.
The two law students are excited to begin their internships in less than a month and are hoping that goodwill will see them taking place as Africa’s, representatives on the programme.
Well-wishers can reach them on +263 772 487 835 — Nadia Mutisi and +263 783 507 588 — Nathan Zindikilani.
Online Reporter