Tsungai Kupeta is a Zimbabwean pursuing a PhD in Economics at the University of Cape Town. Her research focuses on climate justice and protection through sustainable transitions in South Africa. The aim of the study is to understand the labor market implications associated with the transition. She grew up in rural areas in Zimbabwe with her single mother (a domestic worker), whom she had to take care of during her high school studies when her mother was critically ill. Despite all the financial challenges and hardships she faced growing up, she managed to break the school record and become the best-ever student at her Ordinary Level.

Tsungai is committed to empowering women and girls through education so that the gender gap can be closed in the labor market to fight today’s injustices and develop a society for the benefit of generations to come. In line with this, she has mentored several women and young girls to rewrite their GSCE exams in Zimbabwe. She has also organized several outreaches as a peer educator and mentor to high school students in underserved areas in rural Zimbabwe.

Her future goal is to establish a well-coordinated organisation that helps vulnerable women and girls in Zimbabwe, particularly in rural areas, by empowering and mentoring women to become economically independent and socially confident for better livelihoods and sustainable income.

Sibusiso Tshuma, a Zimbabwean, is registered for a PhD in Publishing Studies at the University of Pretoria. She holds a BA Hons and a Master’s in Publishing Studies, both from the University of the Witwatersrand. She also holds a BA Hons in English from the University of Zimbabwe.

Sibusiso’s mission is to make reading fun and accessible for black tweens throughout Southern Africa by creating culturally and contextually relevant books. She believes this could be a step towards developing interest in reading, pointing out that the publishing industry currently relies on Eurocentric imports for this age-group. Sibusiso is developing an Afrocentric Critical Racial-ethnic framework for trade books, which should be a useful tool in improving reading for understanding in contexts of low-comprehension skill levels among tweens, such as in South Africa where Grade 4 and 5 students have been performing badly in performance metrics like PIRLS, TIMSS, and SACMEQ.

Her limited access to culturally relevant books (or any books at all) as she was growing up between rural and peri-urban Plumtree made her alive to the need to improve the availability of and access to such books. She seeks to combine her love for literature with the knowledge she has gained in publishing to realize this dream.

Sibusiso gives back to her community by collecting and distributing pre-loved books for children in rural Plumtree, runs a community library manned by her parents, and offers writing workshops on a voluntary basis to young women in academia. She has over 8 years’ experience in editing magazines, adult, and children’s books. She is currently working at the University of Pretoria as an Assistant Lecturer.