A medical student who raised £24,000 to help fund her studies last year fears she might have to give up her degree as she is faced with uncertainty over funding her final year. Mazvita Manzai has been a medical student at Cardiff University since 2018 but, unless she is able to fundraise to pay her tuition fees, she may not be able to complete her degree.
Mazvita's mother had been paying for her studies, as well as those of her other daughter, who is also studying medicine in Hungary. But the contract for Mazvita's mother's job ended in 2018 during upheaval in Zimbabwe. While Mazvita's mother has since worked as a farmer, she is struggling to cover the tuition fees, and Mazvita is unable to get a job while on placement at a hospital and working long hours.
Shortly before Mazvita left to study, her mother's contract ended after 25 years of working for her employer. "She was like, 'Right, pick yourself up and dust yourself off', and went into farming", Mazvita said. "She would hire out her car, she would let out our house for people to stay in - just to keep her girls in school. She's always instilled in us that, with education, you can go so far."
