David Zezai, a PhD student at the CRH was awarded  R5000-00 in the “Judges’ Award” in impacting change across societies in the  University of KwaZulu Natal’s first live event of Inspiring Impact Challenge 2022. David indicated that the money will go towards sponsoring the annual National Youth SDGs summit in Zimbabwe for the year 2022. He participated with seven other shortlisted students who were selected among more than 100 initiatives that had applied. Participants were taken through a six-week long journey of rigorous training covering aspects such as design thinking, business model, sustainability, and pitch readiness before presenting to a panel of eight judges. David is the co-founder of, as well as the Research and Programs Coordinator for the  Zimbabwe Youth SDGs which was established in September 2019, focussing on mobilizing youth participation toward the implementation of Sustainable Development Goals in Zimbabwe. This includes creating platforms for youth to actively contribute in the socio-economic transformation processes, political spaces as well as in climate action. The initiative collaborates with other institutions including the United Nations, Government Ministries, and other organisations beyond the borders of Zimbabwe.

David is also working full-time on his PhD study which is embedded in the ENHANCE project based at the CRH. ENHANCE is focussed on the development and evaluation of a targeted, integrated, coherent and people-centred approach to the management of multimorbidity in South African primary healthcare in collaboration with the Knowledge Translation Unit at the University of Cape Town. David’s study is focusing on understanding how health systems can be strengthened for people-centred care for people with multiple long-term conditions at the primary healthcare level.