Zimbabwe - Cambridge Global Health Cafe: Keynote Speech

Zimbabwe – Cambridge Global Health Café

Dorcas Gwata

Opening Speech

Welcome to our event

Global Health Café ….. in partnership with ZHTS, GHD and Cambridge GH Today Zimbabwe is in conversation with Cambridge

My name is Dorcas Gwata, ZHTS Trustee, Mental Health Nurse, Advisor at THET, Women in Leadership at Oxford University. I am one of many Zimbabwean nurses working in the NHS and Zimbabwe.

Thank you to everyone joining us from all corners of the world, a huge shout out to the Zimbabwean diaspora for supporting this work

Todays event is testimony of possibilities in global health, of corridor conversations that I had with Kristina from Cambridge Global Health team and here we are today sharing lessons and exploring scope for health partnerships

Today is about story telling, sharing lessons from the COVID19 frontline, innovation and resilience,  because above all C19 has reminded us that we live in global village and what strengthens health partnerships is collaboration and shared learning.

African history and culture are really based on oral history, in our Shona culture we have a DARE, a gathering of people, we sit under a tree and tell stories, we begin by saying PAIVAPO … as everyone relaxes to hear the stories

It is not beyond me to acknowledge that this event is largely female led, C19 had proved the effectiveness of female leadership, and today we honour women in to global health. I am deeply grateful to the team that has put this event together, thank you Grace, Fiona, Evelyn, Kristian and Evelyn, thank you very much

In keeping with story telling, today we are on first name terms, cultural conversations sitting under the tree,  somewhere in the outskirts of Harare amidst the African winds and dust, we will hear from remarkable leaders of our time

We will hear from Rashida Ferrand a firebrand of a leader, leading from the front, working on Zim C19 public health taskforce and treating patients in Parirenyatwa hospital, we love her humanitarianism, supporting communities with groceries and leading PhD students all of whom are doing remarkable research in Zimbabwe

We will hear from Elenoir Moore, Consultant in Infectious Diseases at Addenbrookes NHS Trust, since her visit to Zimbabwe Elenoir has been keen to keep this conversation going, this event is the outcome of those exploratory conversations we had, exploring scope for health partnerships, we are very honoured to have her with us today

We will hear from Tarisai Bere, a leading clinical psychologist in Zimbabwe, Tarisai,  I first met Tarisai on the Friendship Bench project, her contribution and research in global mental health is remarkable, her work is rooted in the communities that we serve, and her commitment to workforce mental health well being is important and deeply urgent

We will hear from Tinashe Goronga, a child of ZHTS, we raised him, a rural medicine doctor, we loved his work in Binga and Mpilo hospital, his passion for Social Medicine and equity is remarkable, his work reminds again and again that Zimbabwe exists within the global health community

We will hear from Lynn Kudakwash Marwa, a community leader on our Gogo Project, Lynn will speak on the great innovation that young people are doing in supporting families living in extreme poverty in Mbare, whilst also improving their own mental health.

There is a symbiotic relationship between art and mental health, art helps make sense of the world when so much is uncertain. Today we will hear from one of Zimbabwe’s leading poet’s Ndi Rayane, I first met Rayane at a Harare Poetry Club, his poetic fire speaks to the issues of gender violence, resilience and poverty, story telling through a young persons eyes.

We pause here as we take 30 seconds to remember and honour our colleagues working on the frontline and those we lost on the frontline

30 seconds Mindfulness

We bring our consciousness back, we are still sat under the tree, the sun is shining, I ask my my fellow trustee at ZHTS Brighton Chireka to give his opening remarks, over to you Brighton

Dorcas Gwata

Global Health Consultant

December 2020 @zambezi40