“The African Dream Foundation has come at an opportune time when young people in our community really need to realise that they can effectively and meaningfully contribute to their society. ”
Alumni Profile
Name: Tinashe Goronga
Scholarship: Bachelor of Medicine
Award Year: 2014
Graduated: 2016
Employment: Parirenyatwa Group of Hospitals
The environment has a direct influence on an individual and a population’s health. It determines disease traits, influences predisposing factors and regional distribution of diseases. A good example is how littering can create a breeding ground for mosquitos or polluted water sources can give rise to water borne diseases. I therefore hope to integrate my career in medicine with my interest in the environment and public health. Public health is an area which will help me treat a population and reduce the disease burden of our country and continent. It will help me fully contribute to building a healthier population who can fully contribute to society, improving the quality of life and life expectancy. [When I received the scholarship] mother was widowed and unemployed. My siblings [were] also unemployed so my family ddid not have a certain source of income. I am the first person in my family to graduate with a university degree.
[In 2014] I managed to secure funding for to travel to Uganda to do a Social Medicine attachment . It was as a result of one the lessons I got from the African Dream Leadership Forum ie the importance of networking. I had the opportunity to meet and interact with my community medicine professor outside the formal school setting at a book club. That was before I knew that was co-coordinating our community medicine course. I managed to build a relationship with her and her husband so they offered to help me with looking for funding and sent linked me to the Zimbabwe Health Training Support an organisation based in England. They normally do not fund such programs but they said they were impressed by my resume and decided to make an exception and pay for my accommodation and flights. In return they offered me an opportunity to become a student link between their organisation and our college.
[In 2016] I had the privilege to travel to the USA to participate in a Social Medicine Consortium. I had the privilege to facilitate some of the workshops. The other two were from Uganda and Haiti. I was the only Zimbabwean through and i got to go through a short course i did in Uganda. It was an awesome experience and a lot of the skills from the African Dream Leadership forum came in handy. The African Dream Foundation came at an opportune time when young people in our community really needed to realise that they can effectively and meaningfully contribute to their society.