Life After being an "American Graduate"...Brain Gain vs Brain Drain

Brain Gain vs Brain Drain…My reflection on the discussion we had today with Honorable Minister of Youth Development Indigenization and Empowerment Saviour Kasukuwere…. Zimbabweans in the Diaspora are you willing to come back home for good? If not what is stopping you? If yes, what are your expectations? Hope most of you my friends in USA will share your contributions. Today, Youths who are part of the Diaspora community, we had a meeting/discussion with Honorable Minister of Youth Development Indigenization and Empowerment Saviour Kasukuwere to address various issues core to our hearts in a quest to bridge the gap and accommodate youths in the Diaspora in the progressive building of our beloved Zimbabwe.

On my graduation day tiri "Happi Happi Happi" Once based in USA and now back in Zimbabwe, I am glad to be home and serving my community with the various roles I play and certain leadership positions allotted to me. I however do have my concerns that discourage me sometimes and make me question the reason why I left USA in the first place. A couple of us in the Diaspora have actually been strategizing, trying to tackle the question of how Zimbabwe can maximize the Diaspora potential. And how our knowledge we acquired in Diaspora can be beneficial to the Zimbabwean community. I am a qualified Chemist, but the fact that getting a job as a Chemist is like looking for a lost coin in an ocean is very dishearten & it is the reason why I look elsewhere outside Zimbabwe where I can offer my services & can feel productive (rather than sitting at home because no one is even willing to accommodate me or consider me for even a non-paid internship).

To those who attended the Harvard Africa Business Conference in Boston, USA in 2011; the discussion today is very much correlated to the discussion we had with Deputy Prime Minister Professor A.Mutambara when He requested to have a meeting with all Zimbos who were at Harvard that weekend. So much was said by the D.P.M Professor A.Mutambara that left us the Youths who were in attendance very excited and very hopeful in our dream of coming back home and build our empires there. It’s just sad that for some of us, the network we thought we had built didn’t extend beyond Harvard, it ended when the meeting ended there in Boston. With that said, It is in my hope that everything that transpired today will be a huge contribution to greater things to come and greater networks/. My question to the Honorable Minister (even though I feel he didn’t give me a satisfying answer) was, What is the government doing to engage the Diasporian community to ensure it remains connected to Zimbabwe and ready to participate when the situations allow, also how willing is the Government to engage individuals who may have ideas on how to increase participation of the Diaspora in the now? A friend also shares the same sentiments with me on this concern. I am yet to find a respond to this question. ….but when all is said & done, I would like to comment Harare Youth Council for putting this together, ( Acie Lumumba, Ruvheneko Parirenyatwa, Innocent Katsande, James Pande & those I didn’t tag). May this be the beginning of greater things to come & an inspiration to Youths like myself who are doubting their relevance in the Zimbabwean community to keep pressing on & working hard in building our beloved nation. Let’s stay true to our purpose without dabbling in anything outside the scope of our mission. The future of the Zimbabwe we aspire to see is all in our hands. I was very much delighted by the fact that despite our political affiliation, faculty or geographical locations…the youth in attendance of this discussion do share the same hopes and aspirations, a hope to build a better Zimbabwe…and it is in my anticipation that shared vision will be a unifying force to inspire us to progress forward with hope and determination.