Usap Zimbabwe Class of 2012 Graduation Speech
Transcript by Dominic Mhiripiri in Harare, Zimbabwe
Speech on the occasion of the Usap Class of 2012 graduation on Friday, July 25 2008, Harare US Embassy PAS.
The Ambassador of the United States in Zimbabwe, Mr. James D. McGee. Respected Embassy officials here present. Our revered Educational Advisers Mrs. Rebecca Mano and Mr.Tapfumaneyi Muchenje. Fellow Usap students and our parents, teachers and sponsors here present. Ladies and gentlemen, it's a good day
I feel humbled by the honor that has been bestowed upon me to speak on this extremely important day, and especially the opportunity to do so on behalf of my amazing and talented brothers and sisters in the Class of 2012 of the United States Student Achievers Program, Usap. Today we are gathered for the occasion of our graduation from the first year of what will be a lifetime Usap experience. It was an experience that is worthy reflecting on, in which we were taught, challenged, praised, loved, inspired, made to grow and made to broaden intellectual and emotional horizons. Above all, this was the time in which we realized a great dream of furthering our studies in an amazing country, the United States of America, through the full scholarships we received from some of the most prestigious colleges and universities in that country.
This occasion is the culmination of great and dedicated efforts from the Usap students during their long and challenging application process and the time thereafter when they strove to change their communities in all the ways they could before they left for the United States. This Usap, into which thirty-one outstanding high school seniors were chosen from across Zimbabwe last year, is more than just getting a scholarship to study in the US. We have been nurtured into capable and conscious Zimbabwean citizens in just this year through an array of programs and activities we did inside Usap and in our communities. Some of us spent time teaching in high schools in our home communities, some volunteered to work in this Educational Center some us spent time participating in campaigns namely, for other youths to vote in the elections, and the promoting of female education across the country. Some wrote political and academic writings in newspapers, the Usap website and other publications during the year, half of the group took a challenging and mid-opening class in Political Science with Professor Mark Weinberg, and all of the students came regularly at this Center throughout the year for various seminars and workshops that were very educative and prepared us for an American college experience. One of us represented Zimbabwe at a Afro-Arab cultural exchange summit in Uganda, and many other had similarly fulfilling travel experiences across the country. Without Usap, we would not have met and talked to business leaders like Nigel Chanakira, political leaders like Nelson Chamisa, outstanding journalist, artists, educators from Zimbabwe and the US and indeed the US Ambassador himself, Mr. McGee. We also benefited from Usap being a family where we interacted and learnt with our Usap seniors who are various stages of their academic and career journeys in the US and around the world.
We believe that no time has ever been more critical in the history of our nation, Zimbabwe. Our countrymen are wallowing in daily crucibles of hunger, shortages of basic needs, political violence and instability, lack of press freedom, an extremely high cost of living and more painfully to us, an uncertain future for the children because of an educational system that teeters on the brink of collapse. We therefore see our educational sojourn to the US not only as an opportunity to advance our personal and academic life goals, but also as a mandate given to us to come back home after graduation and serve Zimbabwe our country. I look forward to the day I will graduate from Brown University and come back home to become a great leader in this country and an agent of educational, political and social change. With the talent and motivation that runs in this Usap class, I also see a bright future in which we will make great leaders of Zimbabwean media, business, medicine, politics and all critical fields. It is we who can use our talent and opportunity to help our country address its grave and critical needs. We believe a sound, open-minded and liberally-based education is the most important preparation for the future.
I would like to wish Usap more growth and success in the future as the Class of 2013, who we helped to select, begins its Usap journey next week here in this very room, and once again I thank our Educational Advisers and all who made our Usap journey a successful one. I look forward to the day when all that we dream, all that we aspire for will come true – on a personal, national and global scale.
Ladies and Gentlemen, I wish you all a great and memorable day. Thank you.