2 minute read
SUMMER 2021
COVID-19 shatters dreams, alters hopes at Africa University
According to an April 2021 report by the Centers for Disease Control and other entities, COVID-19 has left more than 1.5 million children experiencing the death of a parent or a grandparent caregiver (orphanhood-report.pdf (cdc.gov).
Death is only one part of the story. The economic impact is another as incomes have decreased or disappeared. Across Zimbabwe, the crisis has resulted in increased crime and reduced quality of life for many. Prices of food, utilities, and the internet have gone up.
For AU students learning remotely, internet connection is expensive and sometimes unreliable because of electricity cuts. Some families cannot afford an ordinary phone, let alone a laptop. The “new normal” remains abnormal. Students are fearful and uncertain about the future.
Africa University is taking immediate and longterm steps to address orphanhood, economic distress and poverty, and access to university education. In 2020, the university provided more than $300,000 in one-time financial aid grants to students, in addition to the already available direct and endowed scholarships. As a second academic year unfolds, the university’s financial aid committee hopes to keep vulnerable students from giving up and dropping out.
The Department of Student Affairs conducts psychosocial programs to address issues affecting students: bereavement counseling, selfesteem/image, peer pressure, relationships, trauma, stress and anxiety, and life skills.
Through the chaplaincy department, students who have lost parents or guardians or tested positive to COVID-19 receive support.
The goal, said Dr. Peter Mageto, acting vicechancellor of the institution, is to “provide reassuring hope, in order for students to make a gradual passage from pain to a renewed sense of life that will sustain them in the future.”
As students and staff mourn the loss of family and friends, AU provides psychosocial support and encouragement. Studying online with two younger siblings, Mellan Nyagato battles grief and worries about the future.
Barbara Dunlap-Berg is a freelance writer in Carbondale, Illinois.
AU junior copes with father’s death from COVID-19
Africa University junior Mellan Nyagato, 21, would love to go back to life less than two years ago. Before COVID-19, the social work major lived in an AU dorm. Her family included her parents, two younger sisters, and a brother, now 25. Then the pandemic struck, claiming Mellan’s father, Enock Nyagato, in July 2020. Mellan and her siblings are not alone, as data from the Centers for Disease Control and other entities confirms. “My three siblings have been healing, as well as motivating each other to continue working hard so that our mother will not get stressed – and to make our father proud,” Mellan said. More than 19 AU students and staff have lost loved ones to COVID-19.
