‘Pathway to Canada’ symposium opens up opportuniti...

‘Pathway to Canada’ symposium opens up opportunities for local students

Gilbert Munetsi

Two Zimbabweans based in North America and an expatriate immigration expert are in the country to share knowledge with locals on smooth relocation to that part of the world in pursuit of academic and professional opportunities.

Jon Chirisa and Diana Mavunduse on Wednesday, January 17, convened a symposium at a Harare hotel which was themed “Pathways to Canada”.

It drew participants from education, industry and the media sectors among others.

The duo, who have been resident in Canada for years and were last in Zimbabwe two years ago on a similar mission, were this time around in the company of Bukky Wonda.

The Nigerian-born entrepreneur is the founder and chief immigration officer of Shirah2Africa and its subsidiary, Studently.

While the former focuses on connecting prospective learners to high schools, undergraduate and post-graduate programmes, the latter serves potential international clients wishing to relocate to Canada.

“We were in Zimbabwe in December 2022 with investors in tele-health, tele-medicine, mobile clinics manufacturing, pharmaceutical supply and manufacturing.

“Having stayed in Zimbabwe throughout the process, we realised that there are so many opportunities in the country. And so we ended up bringing (Bukki) Wonda to explore more in immigration and education.

“Anchored on our education’s 5.0 model that speaks a lot to innovation, we believe in a curriculum that is equally customised to our resources, coupled with instructors equipped with enough industrial experience that they can impart to the students,” Chirisa said in an interview.

Chirisa said he had personally assisted South African companies broker business deals worth more than US$100 million with his country of residence through its industrial governing body, the Canadian Welding Bureau.

“I was approached by the CWB who had shifted focus from China and were looking at other markets, preferably in the Sadc region.

“I personally helped SA firms acquire internationally-recognised certification so they could be able to manufacturer products for the North American market. The tragedy of it though is that 90 percent of the SA companies' staff are Zimbabweans, and that's investment and money that should be coming this way,” he bemoaned.

He said for programmes such as mining and IT, there were many students migrating to Canada, the UK and Australia and yet the studies could be offered right at their doorstep.

“We therefore thought it would be good to bring such programmes to Zimbabwe so that our students can have one or two years doing a programme that adds value to our industry, then finish it off in another country,” he said.

Wonda revealed her company has realised a 99 percent success rate on applications with over 2 500 clients having settled in Canada.

Among tertiary institutions represented at yesterday's symposium were the Harare Institute of Technology and Kushinga Phikelela.