OUR STUDENTS

The LBW Trust is currently supporting 67 male and female students while they complete their tertiary education in three countries: 17 students from Zimbabwe and South Africa at five different institutions in South Africa; 26 through the Vikash Educational Charitable Trust in Orissa, India; 19 at Imran Kahn’s Namal College in Mianwali, Pakistan; and five through the Sustainable Peace and Development Organisation (SPADO) in Pakistan.

 

 

 

 

 

Tinashe Ruswa is one of our Zimbabwean students, studying programming at the University of the Western Cape in South Africa. In November 2009 the computer society of South Africa gave him the ICT student of the year award. He writes:

 

“I was born in Harare, Zimbabwe as a first born in a family of three siblings’ two boys and a girl. We stayed in a township called Highfield in a two roomed house. From a very young age my mother always reminded me that the only way to better myself and my life was through education and if I worked really hard I would change my circumstances and my future.

During my O levels in 2001 I managed to secure the highest O level results in Churchill’s 50 year history where I obtained 6 A’s and three B’s in the sciences stream. I completed my A levels in 2003 but I could not afford to further my education.

I held my dream for three years so as to enable me to go work and look for money from December 2003 to assist my mother and my family, this is when I played cricket for the Zimbabwe national cricket Academy and went on to play for Zimbabwe A. I worked hard so as to put my young sister through high school and I prayed that with that done I will somehow go to university afterwards and fulfill my dream.

I promised my mother that one day I will fulfill our dream of me reaching tertiary education but unfortunately she never lived to realize that dream. On the 31^st of December 2005 my mother passed away. On that day I vowed that I would do anything it takes to realize her dream. I left Zimbabwe cricket and came down to South Africa to look at how I can achieve my dream of tertiary education

I applied to come study here at UWC under the NGO Sports Skills for Life Skills and LBW Trust. They offered me a chance to play cricket whilst studying again and it is here that I realized my dream.

However as soon as I had begun News came to me from Zimbabwe that my little brother Tinotenda had died within 6 months of my mother’s passing. It broke me and shattered my world to lose my family like that let alone I was out here in a foreign place alone. However I persevered on and managed to organize tuition support for my young sister Tendai who is still back home in Zimbabwe to do some part time diploma course from the LBW Trust.

I am still playing cricket and that my sister is studying back home, these two things bring joy to my heart. Things have been tough and I have not been home for three years but I have managed to achieve my goals and not let setbacks pull me down.

In the SS4LS program I am a motivational speaker and mentor to the other students at the University who like me are coming from broken troubled homes. I assist them to adapt to university life, set goals and live to achieve as I can relate to what they are going through. As one of the senior boys from the LBW Trust I assist in being a chaperon and older brother to the younger lads through offering tutoring assistance to those students that need help to adjust and cope with the university workload and how to balance their cricket and academic lives.”