It took five years, but Tecla Masamba’s dream of coming to the Coady International Institute at StFX has finally come true, thanks to a new partnership between the Nova Scotia Government Employee’s Union and Coady Institute.

 

Tecla Masamba, a protocol officer with the Zimbabwe Congress of Trade Unions, is the first participant to receive the NSGEU Coady Scholarship, which helps cover her tuition costs in the 2011 Diploma in Development Leadership program. The 19-week program attracts community development practitioners from around the world who also become active, engaged members of the StFX community in Antigonish from August to December each year.

 

“We may be oceans apart,” says Darren McPhee, NSGEU secretary-treasurer, “but we have more in common than we do differences.”

 

“It is extremely generous for the NSGEU to offer this scholarship,” says Masamba, who waited five years before she could get a travel visa for Canada.

 

“What I’ve learned through the Coady Institute will be so valuable to my day-to-day work for the labour movement in northern Zimbabwe. I am very thankful that our brothers and sisters here in Nova Scotia have made this commitment.”

 

Masamba says her organization often responds to cases involving dismissals, sexual harassment in the workplace, pay discrepancies and casual employment. She adds that the facilitation skills and the participatory approach taught in Coady programs will go a long way to enhance her work at the Congress of Trade Unions.