Author: TSA Press

It is that time of year at Vanderbilt Law where 1Ls trudge across the street to Career Services for their initial appointment with their assigned counselor.  This weeks-long cavalcade is valuable for me as I can put a face with each name on my Excel spreadsheet while also beginning a relationship that will not just last for the next three years, but ideally for the foreseeable future as the student graduates, goes off into legal practice, and starts recruiting the next generation of Vanderbilt students.  The intrinsic value of these numerous meetings has only been amplified this year as they provide me with a much-needed distraction from watching the President of the United States repeatedly admit to crimes, and other impeachable actions, on national television while also melting down on Twitter and in press conferences, behavior which has quickly morphed from “you hate to see it” to “the person in charge of the most powerful military in human history is really losing his mind, isn’t he?”

Almost exactly a year ago today, I discussed what 1Ls should be seeking from their CSO during an initial meeting.  This column looks at the other side of the table — or in my case, office desk — what I, and those in CSO more generally, are/should be looking for from this first conversation with students.  I start these introductory meetings the same way — yes, having conducted these for more than four years, and with literally hundreds of students, I have developed a script in my mind that I could recite while half asleep if need be, a skill that can come in handy after a long day while living that #4fourandunder lifestyle — explaining that the first half of the discussion consists of me asking the student a bunch of questions and the second is mainly me talking at them to explain how our office operates.  The second half of this conversation is going to vary from school to school and probably of little interest to a broader audience, though 1Ls have been THRILLED to learn they are going to be the guinea pigs for the post-NALP Guidelines world after the organization’s stunning abdication last year.  However, the first half of the conversation is something worth diving into.

So, what are some of the questions I ask during an initial CSO meeting?  First, I want to know a bit about a student’s background.  Where are they from?  Where did they go to college, and why?  What did they study?  Not only does it help me understand the student a bit more and, ideally, find something relatable between the two of us, but also because certain undergraduate majors for attorneys are in far greater demand than others.  While I, and the rest of my CSO colleagues around the country, might know that a law student with an electrical engineering degree is as close to instantaneously employable as exists in Biglaw, that might not be self-evident to a 22-year-old who graduated from college three months prior and has no foundational understanding of the legal recruiting world.

I also like to get a sense from students why they decided to come to law school.  Is this a lifetime passion of theirs or was it the default option for a smart kid who couldn’t stand the sight of blood?  That is a question that comes up in nearly every legal job interview, regardless of the employer, so it is best to start perfecting that answer now.

My curiosity over their law school enrollment extends to why they picked Vanderbilt.  What was it about the school that stood out and how might that correlate to the type of employer for which they are best suited?  Students who valued the school’s collegiality and small class size will, ideally, become deeply enmeshed into the fabric of the law school during their time on campus, likely making them an excellent resource for future matriculants at Vanderbilt Law.  Also on the list of questions is what other schools they were considering aside from Vanderbilt.  While law school rankings can serve some purpose, I guess, I think a far better metric is to sort schools by tiers based on what other schools a 1L was considering.  It is no surprise that the vast majority of Vanderbilt students say they chose us over a pool of roughly six to 10 others law schools.

Inquiring about a student’s past work experience lets me know who has been in a professional environment before, and thus likely knows that the key to excelling therein is often based on performing basic acts of professionalism such as showing up to work each day and answering emails that are sent your way.  This is not to say that students who come straight through from undergrad cannot excel in a professional setting, but sometimes they might need professionalism concepts that seem rudimentary to many explained in a deliberate manner.

I tell students that while I know that they have only been in law school for a month or so at that point, I am curious as to their post-graduation plans, in both the short term and the long-term.  As I mention to all students, the Vanderbilt CSO is designed to help students obtain the job they are looking for in any corner of the legal industry, but there are some areas in which I, and our office in general, have greater expertise.  For example, since the vast bulk of Vanderbilt students want to go into Biglaw, we have cultivated a knowledge base and established a recruiting program that makes such jobs quite obtainable.  For those students who wish to go into an alternative field, I am more than happy to assist in their search, but we also have other resources available that will be especially helpful, if a student knows of, and utilizes them — for example, we have a faculty member who is the dedicated federal clerkship advisor and whose tireless efforts have allowed Vanderbilt to repeatedly rank as one of top law schools in the nation for churning out federal law clerks, as well as having a Public Interest Office who works directly with those students seeking to use their law degree for the greater good in public service.  A corollary question is in what geographic area a student would like to practice.  Again, while Vanderbilt is national law school which sends people to destinations across the U.S. and the world, there are certain areas in which we have alumni bursting from the seams and have specific structures in place to help students secure a job.  Other markets are obtainable, it will just require a different strategy and a realistic understanding of how those markets operate.

Finally, after asking about foreign language skills, I ask students to tell me something about themselves I would not be able to discern from any of their paper application materials (i.e., résumé, cover letter, transcripts, etc.)  While many students are befuddled by the question and might be wondering about its relevance, there is a reason it holds a place in the script.  By in large, employers know that nearly all members of a given Vanderbilt 1L class can do the work required of an attorney at an Am Law 100 firm, a boutique practice, governmental service, the nonprofit sector, or elsewhere.  So the interview process can be more about finding a colleague than a competent attorney.  Being able to express who you are outside of your academic and professional accomplishments and help employers determine who they are going to want to pull all-nighters with and who they think will mesh well with their culture.  Plus, as more and more legal employers increasingly use behavioral questions, students have to be prepared to talk about more than what their favorite class is or why they came to law school.  Beginning to think about who you are outside of the classroom and your life experiences that brought you to law school can help you stand out during the interview process in a way your peers will not.

So, I look forward to meeting my cohort of Vanderbilt Law 1Ls and finding out all about who they are, why they came to law school, and what they hope to accomplish upon graduation.  Besides, it provides a respite from finding out no one in the highest levels of the U.S. government heeded Stringer Bells’ reprobation.

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Nicholas Alexiou is the Director of LL.M. and Alumni Advising as well as the Associate Director of Career Services at Vanderbilt University Law School. He will, hopefully, respond to your emails at abovethelawcso@gmail.com.

When investors eagerly snapped up $2.75 billion worth of Argentine hundred-year bonds two years ago, they figured the country only had to honor the first 12 years and they’d be fine. Seemed a pretty decent bet to some: After all, Argentina defaults at an average rate of once every 16 years and 8 months, giving them a nice four-and-a-three-quarter-year cushion. Also, the country had just elected an avowedly pro-business president who was sure to fix everything right away and usher in a new era of capitalist success and on-time-bill-paying.

It has all worked out so well in one heavily-indebted crisis-racked country that recently elected a pro-business leader that the bond market thought it would be good to give another a try. And rather than waiting around to see exactly how many years it would have to wait before losing money on the bet, it just decided to lose the money upfront.

The Greek government issued €487.5 million ($535.31 million) of three-month debt at a yield of minus-0.02%….

The election of a pro-business, center-right government under Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis this July has further contributed to a sense that normality is returning….

Doubts remain over the sustainability of Greece’s debt in the long term, because its huge, cheap bailout loans from eurozone governments must eventually be replaced with market financing at uncertain cost….

“If Greece continues to do well and credit risk continues to go down, you could see rates go even more negative,” Mr. Farmakis said.

A Seven-year Jubilee

In a joint pastoral declaration titled, “Call for national Sabbath for trust and confidence-building in Zimbabwe,” the leaders of the umbrella Christian denominations namely, the Zimbabwe Council of Churches (ZCC), Zimbabwe Catholic Bishops’ Conference (ZCBC), Evangelical Fellowship of Zimbabwe (EFZ), Union for the Development of Apostolic Churches in Zimbabwe (UDA-CIZA) are calling for a Biblical Jubilee season of seven years.

During the seven years, Zimbabweans would have the opportunity to rebuild trust and confidence; reset the way of doing politics and chart a shared way forward towards comprehensive economic recovery. The Jubilee would be characterised by a non-competitive political environment.

Suspend constitutional provision for national elections

The non-competitive political environment proposed by the Church involves suspending periodic elections. The Church leaders, however, say consent would need to be obtained from citizens through a referendum

“The SABBATH proposal entails the suspension of the constitutional provision of elections, but such a (provision) will be redressed through a national referendum. The national referendum question would seek to ascertain from all Zimbabweans whether (or not) they agree with a proposal for a seven-year suspension of all political contestation for the sake of rebuilding trust and confidence by healing of all hurts of the past, and executing a shared constitutional and political national reform agenda,  and establishing and implementing a shared national economic vision,” the Christian Church leaders recommend.

Without collaboration, the country’s political paralysis will continue

According to the Church leaders 7.7 million Zimbabweans need food assistance and the country as a whole is experiencing enormous political, economic and social challenges that warrant a new approach.

“The current political paralysis and logjam characterised by the failure of the ruling party and the main opposition party to find a workable collaborative model is an issue of great concern. The fact that the two main political parties remain stuck in the post-election mode and will soon embark on a new election mode means that Zimbabwe is unlikely to realise any meaningful engagement between these parties towards a shared constitutional alignment agenda. Without a shared approach to national processes, the efforts by one are undermined by the other, while any positive contribution towards the national good is read only within a party-political perspective. We foresee that, whichever political party wins an election, the paralysis will remain, if the opposing parties do not learn to collaborate. It is the people who will continue to suffer if as a nation, we fail to establish unity in diversity,” said the Church leaders.

Toxic political relations

Relations among Zimbabwe’s political players have become so toxic that Church leaders believe only radical reform can redeem them.

“Having looked at these issues in a holistic fashion, the Church leaders have observed that the current environment does not allow for meaningful political reforms, nor is it conducive for inclusive economic participation for ordinary citizens. Such an environment of toxic political relations also renders our international re-engagement process futile, which international isolation inhibits investor confidence and slows economic growth. Such a polarised environment weakens respect for national institutions such as the courts, the police and the security sectors. Once such institutions are viewed as partisan and lacking in independence, it becomes impossible to elicit cooperation among the policy and political actors to drive a national reform process in the best interests of the nation,” reads part of the statement.

The Church leaders insist that Zimbabwe has not yet undergone healing from the past periods of national hurt. What the country requires urgently, they say, is a complete break with the current paralysis and a move towards real renewal and transformation.

The Cyber Crime, Cyber Security and Data Protection Bill of 2019 was passed by president Emmerson Mnangagwa’s cabinet on Tuesday, representing an important step towards it becoming law. It still has to be debated and approved by parliament, in which Mnangagwa’s ruling Zanu PF party has a majority.

Mnangagwa said last week the bill has to be fast-tracked to protect Zimbabwe’s “cyber-space”. However, there is wide-spread sentiment the law is being pushed through to deal with potential uprisings, especially as public anger against the government’s austerity measures.

The bill has been criticized for infringing on civil liberties if it becomes law and there are fears from rights and democracy campaigners it could also strengthen any government bid to snoop on private communications of citizens. It sets out penalize people for generation and distribution of “data concerning an identifiable person knowing it to be false and intending to cause psychological or economic” harm.

The bill was first mulled under the late former leader, Robert Mugabe in 2016 and took hold in 2017 after major protests against Mugabe and economic decline using the #tajamuka, #Mugabemustgo and #thisflag banners and tags broke out in Harare.

Some Zimbabweans are also worried Mnangagwa is pushing the bill to become law so he can use it to deal with potential uprisings fueled through social media.

WhatsApp, Twitter and Facebook have become key platforms for spreading information about protests in Zimbabwe and elsewhere in Africa. WhatsApp in particular, is very well used in Zimbabwe, where it accounts for nearly 50% of all internet use in the country.

Zimbabwean government officials have long complained these platforms are being abused to spread false news, most of which is deemed by authorities to be offensive. Mnangagwa’s government ordered a social media black-out in January this year after deadly protests rocked major urban centers following a massive fuel price hike.

The Cyber Crime and Cyber Security Bill “seeks to combat cyber-crime and increase cyber security” and to foster “data protection with due regard to constitutional rights and public interest” said justice minister Ziyambi Ziyambi in his presentation of the bill to cabinet. It will also provision for the setting up of a data protection authority and data security center.

The controversial bill has, however, been welcomed in some circles, especially on the principle of “curbing the transmission of pornographic material” in the Zimbabwean context where revenge pornography leaks have become common. The Human Rights Forum of Zimbabwe said earlier this year that revenge pornography was a form of gender-based violence, hence its call for laws to regulate the transmission of pornography.

Analysts in Zimbabwe such as Pedzisai Ruhanya of the Zimbabwe Democracy Institute believe Mnangagwa’s administration will lean on China for technology and expertise to monitor and regulate social media data under the new cyber-crime law. Zimbabwe has already worked with Chinese technology for facial recognition technology which has been deployed at the country’s borders as well as well as anti-poaching and wildlife monitoring equipment in the Manna Pools resort.

“The technology will likely be Chinese and so will be the expertise for this project (social media regulation). And it’s probably to deal with protests and uprisings,” said Ruhanya.

Residents in the capital Harare, have been grappling with 18-hour blackouts [File: Philimon Bulawayo/Reuters]

When we talk about giant law firms, we tend to describe them as amoeba-like behemoths expanding their will into every corner of the globe. There’s certainly something to that description, especially when you consider the way some of these firms expand into new markets by developing more outposts connected to a central hub or two. But there’s another way to look at expansion — if a firm’s doing it right — and while it may seem counter-intuitive it’s really possible to use expansion to get more local.

After adding another 300 lawyers this week, Joe Andrew went on a whirlwind tour of Indiana and Kentucky to meet with the clients who will benefit from the latest Dentons tie-up. The Dentons global chair took some time between his third client event in Indianapolis and his first in Louisville to chat about the Dentons strategy and how he sees it as critical to bringing law firms in line with client expectations.

Because where are clients? While law firms cling to their New York or Chicago headquarters, top tier clients in every industry are scattered across the country. “Think about the UK,” Andrew says, “70 percent of their top companies are located in London. Of the Russell 3000, only 7 percent are in New York.” When put that way, why wouldn’t law firms endeavor to meet clients where they are? It’s the model accounting firms follow. Consulting firms too. Even the major architecture firms are all over the place. Professional services are meant to be locally available and it’s frankly strange that Dentons seems to be pursuing this strategy all by itself among law firms.

We already know that clients are trying to scale back on the number of law firms they employ. Andrew points out that this is for good reason — it’s expensive to keep a lot of law firms on the books. Hiring regional firms or local counsel all over the place requires more in-house staff to keep everything covered. One law firm capable of delivering everywhere is an instant cost-saving for clients.

Speaking of the Big 4, this model of offering access to global talent through local representatives is the whole basis of industry concerns about accounting firms upending the Biglaw model in the United States. The thinking goes that when the Big 4 finally enters the legal practice space in earnest, it will leverage its established local relationships as accountants and consultants with foreign entities doing business in the U.S., crowding out the Biglaw firms currently soaking up that business. Dentons, who counts the Big 4 among its best clients in the U.S. and best competitors abroad — particularly in Latin America where the accounting firms are already practicing — appears to be positioning itself to be ahead of the game when the practice bar falls.

Andrew acknowledges the Big 4 as inspirations behind this strategy — not out of fear but out of common sense. “What their global presence allows them to understand is process and relationships. They get that there is talent everywhere to assist clients.” This commitment to local talent was the subject of a recent essay where Andrew focused on the traditional law firm model as colonialist. It’s not a stretch: firms run Latin America practices out of New York, Africa offices out of Lisbon, Asia practices out of San Francisco… if there are physical locations in other countries, they can resemble glorified local counsel.

“The lawyers in these countries… they all went to Harvard and Yale. They all have the same smartphones and access to the same information as U.S.-based attorneys but they have even more because they know the community,” Andrew told me. “It’s great to have people in the U.S. with expertise but that’s not how you capture work. There’s talent in Bogota… people who live and work in that community.”

And that goes for the domestic practice as well. Local attorneys and potential clients belong to the same alumni groups and local charity boards and churches and clubs. That’s as true of Indianapolis as it is Bogota. Dentons doesn’t understand why a firm wouldn’t want to have as many attorneys with local insights, connections, and know-how as possible.

For Dentons, getting bigger is all about getting closer.

Earlier: Biglaw Firm Completes Massive… Merger?… Acquisition?… What Should We Call This?
Biglaw Chair Slams The Traditional Law Firm Model

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Joe Patrice is a senior editor at Above the Law and co-host of Thinking Like A Lawyer. Feel free to email any tips, questions, or comments. Follow him on Twitter if you’re interested in law, politics, and a healthy dose of college sports news. Joe also serves as a Managing Director at RPN Executive Search.

Hundreds of lawyers will gather in Monterey this week for the California Lawyers Association’s second “Annual Meeting,” which offers one more action-packed day of activities than the inaugural gathering.

The three-day conference starting Thursday will feature one of its premier events on day one, as California Supreme Court Justices Ming Chen and Joshua Groban will be interviewed during a luncheon.

Chin, who was appointed in 1996 by Gov. Pete Wilson, is the longest serving justice. Groban, who was Gov. Jerry Brown’s last appointee to the court, assumed his role at the start of 2019.

“We have found our attendees and members really like hearing from the California Supreme Court,” said outgoing CLA President Heather L. Rosing. “They like to understand how it works, and they like to hear the behind-the-scenes stories. I think people are also very excited to hear from Justice Groban because they don’t know him yet.”

The first day will also feature an awards ceremony and opening reception at 5:30 p.m.

“The extraordinary individuals being honored by CLA represent the very best of the legal community and we at CLA are thrilled to recognize them for their achievements,” CLA Executive Director Ona Dosunmu said in a statement.

One of the highlights Friday will be constitutional scholar and UC Berkeley School of Law Dean Erwin Chemerinsky giving the annual Alexander F. Morrison Lecture during lunch. At night, attendees can partake in a dinner reception at the Monterey Aquarium.

A swearing-in ceremony for the new leaders of the California Lawyers Association and California Judges Association is scheduled for Saturday. Emilio Varanini will serve as the new CLA President and Orange County Superior Court Judge Tam Nomoto Schumann will be the new California Judges Association president.

The officers will be sworn-in by California Chief Justice Tani G. Cantil-Sakauye, who let Groban handle similar duties at the recent swearing-in of the State Bar’s new leaders.

Cantil-Sakauye will be a major part of the day’s events in another way too, as she will receive the Sandra Day O’Connor Award for the Advancement of Civics Education from the National Center for State Courts.

The last night of the conference will include the California Young Lawyers Association’s “BBQ, Brews and Bocce President’s and Chair’s reception.” (During a trivia contest at last year’s CYLA reception, I was thrilled to help my team correctly answer that award-winning producer David E. Kelley went to law school at Boston University, which is where I completed my undergraduate degree.)

The California Judges Association, Bench-Bar Coalition, and Conference of California Bar Associations will also be holding their annual meetings in Monterey this week.

The State Bar hosted the yearly gathering bringing a wide variety of members of the legal community together for more than 80 years before ceding the duties to CLA, which launched last year as a result of the bar’s 16 sections and the young lawyers association being split off by the state Legislature.

CLA’s inaugural annual meeting in San Diego was a rousing success, and Rosing said they are hoping for an even-better event in year two.

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Lyle Moran is a freelance writer in San Diego who handles both journalism and content writing projects. He previously reported for the Los Angeles Daily Journal, San Diego Daily Transcript, Associated Press, and Lowell Sun. He can be reached at lmoransun@gmail.com and found on Twitter @lylemoran.

* Where does Gordon Caplan go from here? Maybe he goes back to school… I hear there are some folks out there who can help him get in. [American Lawyer]

* Mitch McConnell’s aide is running for Kentucky AG. The only problem? Kentucky has a law requiring candidates for the post practice law at least sometime in the past eight years. He’s arguing that a federal clerkship should count as “the practice of law” as opposed to “one year Fed Soc externship.” We’ve made a mockery of so many rules, why not this one? [Corporate Counsel]

* Mark Zaid’s daily adventures representing whistleblowers. [The Hill]

* Bill Brewer heads to court to see whether or not his $177K benchslapping he received will stand up on appeal. [Texas Lawyer]

* Matt Lauer’s attorney pushing back against rape allegations, explaining that her former anchor client was involved in a completely mutual and consensual affair with someone on the lower end of a gross power imbalance. [National Law Journal]

* Railroaded former Goldman Sachs coder Sergey Aleynikov lost his recent appeal. He’d argued that double jeopardy precluded his conviction, which of course is a non-starter in a dual sovereignty world. [Law360]

* Freshfields partner resigns over accusations of “engaging in sexual activity with intoxicated junior colleague” [Legal Cheek]

HARARE Magistrate Learnmore Mapiye on Wednesday 9 October remanded
seven human rights defenders (HRDs) charged with plotting to overthrow
President Emmerson Mnangagwa’s government to January next year and
warned the State that failure to provide the accused persons with a
trial date would result in their removal from remand.

The seven HRDs namely Nyasha Frank Mpahlo, George Makoni, Tatenda
Mombeyarara, Gamuchirai Mukura, Stabile Dewa, Rita Nyampinga and Pride
Mkono were arrested in May and August respectively by Zimbabwe
Republic Police (ZRP) officers who charged them with subverting
constitutional government as defined in section 22(2)(a)(iii) of the
Criminal Law (Codification and Reform) Act.

According to prosecutors, Makoni, Mombeyarara, Mukura, Mpahlo, Dewa
and Nyampinga, who are represented by Jeremiah Bamu, Tinomuda Shoko
and Blessing Nyamaropa of Zimbabwe Lawyers for Human Rights, allegedly
connived and travelled to Maldives on 13 May 2019, where they attended
a training workshop organised by Centre for Applied Non Violent Action
and Strategies (CANVAS), a Serbian non-governmental organisation, with
the intention of subverting a constitutionally elected government.

The prosecutors claimed that during the training workshop, the six
human rights campaigners were trained on how to mobilise citizens to
turn against the government and to engage in acts of civil
disobedience and or resistance to any law during some anticipated
national protests organised by some anti-government movements.

The law enforcements agents charged that Makoni, Mombeyarara, Mukura,
Mpahlo, Dewa and Nyampinga were also trained on how to operate small
arms and to evade arrest during civil unrest and on
counter-intelligence and acts of terrorism.

In the case of Mkono, he was arrested in August and charged with
subverting constitutional government as defined in section
22(2)(a)(iii) of the Criminal Law (Codification and Reform) Act or
alternatively inciting pubic violence as defined in section 187(1)(b)
of the Criminal Law (Codification and Reform) Act.

Prosecutors claimed that Mkono, who is the Chairperson of the Youth
Committee of the Crisis in Zimbabwe Coalition posted some comments on
Twitter in January inciting members of the public to commit public
violence wherein he allegedly wrote that; “Fellow Zimbabweans, let us
all join hands and fight the regime head on. Let us all flood the
streets show our anger to the regime until the government concede to
our demands or leave office.”

In remanding the seven HRDs who are all out of custody on bail to 7
January 2020 and are reporting once every week at some ZRP stations,
Magistrate Mapiye said this should allow the State represented by
Charles Muchemwa enough time to put its house in order and furnish the
pro-democracy campaigners with a trial date when they return to court
early next year.

On the 10th of October every year, the world commemorates and acknowledges the importance of mental health across the world in metropolitan and rural communities.

The focus on this year’s World Mental Health Day is on suicide, because it has become a global public health crisis that is preventable, and yet it has become a mental health menace which has taken many of our people to the grave prematurely.

The World Health Organisation informs us that every 40 seconds, someone, somewhere in the world takes their own life through suicide.

That is a frightening statistic, 2160 people dying daily through suicide, it translates to 788,400 people dying annually from suicide.

This prevalence makes suicide an immediate problem that requires urgent medical and social solutions within our communities, because not doing so is robbing the country of people who succumb to this menace at the prime of their lives.

Suicide is now believed to be the leading cause of death among young people aged between 16 and 28 in Zimbabwe.

Unfortunately here in our country, it is not unusual anymore to read headlines in the local media related to suicide.

Our citizens are now so used to it, such that they simply shake their heads in disbelief whenever another suicide story is published in our media.

A society should NEVER be conditioned to something so dreadful that can be drastically reduced by public mental health interventions, failing to do so is an act of gross irresponsibility and social negligence.

This means that suicide has become a major public health priority that needs immediate attention in Zimbabwe.

Unfortunately we currently have a broken public health delivery system that is struggling to treat the most basic of medical conditions due to years of underfunding and neglect.

According to the World Health Organisation, our country has one of the highest suicide rates in the region, this is not surprising anymore because a struggling economy puts unbearable pressure on the minds of its citizens.

Associated with suicide are also mental health conditions such as depression, bipolar disorder, anxiety disorders, post-traumatic stress disorders and many other mental health conditions that unfortunately due to our age old cultural taboos, they are not talked about sufficiently and openly in our communities.

These mental health disorders are easily treatable, but because of the huge treatment gap for such conditions in our country, 90 percent of those needing evidence-based care do not get it because we don’t have enough professionals to treat them.

Zimbabwe currently has only 15 practicing psychiatrists for a population of 15 million people that is one psychiatrist for every one million people.

Unfortunately almost all of them are restricted to tertiary health facilities in Harare, making it difficult for those at community and rural locations to access this pertinent service.

Task shifting is a concept that has been encouraged by the World Health Organisation as a way of addressing this treatment gap.

Making evidence-based care treatments accessible to many of our people who can’t afford to see a psychiatrist or a psychologist is extremely important.

By training community health volunteers as we have seen with the Friendship bench program, it is possible to provide immediate access in communities, schools, universities and the work place with the much-needed mental health care.

There is an urgent need for our mental health professionals to explore ways of scaling up task shifting models, particularly the ones that have been developed locally.

Mental health requires our communities to get together because Zimbabwe is going through one of the most difficult times, and the risk of mental ill health is high and probable in all segments of our country regardless of societal status, class or race.

As a political party concerned with the mental well-being of our citizens, the MDC values the importance of mental health because it is a key building block to a prosperous society and economy.

A prosperous and healthy economy by its very nature will reduce the pressures that afflict our people daily, resulting in disorders such as depression and anxiety or worse.

I therefore on this very important day encourage all Zimbabweans to take time out to show compassion towards each other, and remember that regardless of our various chosen political persuasions, we are one people.

Be your brother’s keeper, be the mother of the nation who will help heal the many traumatic wounds that we carry from a very difficult past and presently harsh economic environment. Under my new government, I make a commitment today to putting mental health amongst my first priorities in order to reduce the unacceptable mental treatment gap.

It is totally unacceptable that out of every 100 people that require access to mental health services in our country, only 10 people are able to get that much needed help that is 10 percent.

We will change all that and make mental health the most urgent priority in our health delivery system. For what are we without our minds?

Today let us create space and pay attention to citizens that need someone to talk to and share their stories, talking is an important therapy tool in healing the mind.

Let us all take time to listen to the broken hearted, and let us all remember to take good care of our mental health.

On behalf of the MDC and myself, I wish the whole country a happy World Mental Health day.

Advocate Nelson Chamisa

President – Movement For Democratic Change