"I'd love to give something back," says child and youth care grad

Dee

As a homeless child, Devi Dee lived on the streets of Harare, Zimbabwe, and survived on food pilfered from garbage cans. When he returned to Harare last summer, it was as a UVic child and youth care student, intent on using his practicum experience to help boys in the same orphanage where he once lived make the transition to a life outside the institution.

Dee's life has been one of struggle and determination interrupted by kindness and seized opportunities-set against a backdrop of the often-violent political struggles of his homeland. His choice of graduate studies in dispute resolution was shaped by his past.

"I'm really interested in how extreme conflict affects the identity development of children," he says. "The legacy of colonization is a lot more complex than people realize. It's affected the lives of millions of people, and there is so much to be done."

Dee is one of the affected ones. His parents separated when he was two - torn apart by conflicting political loyalties in pre-independence Rhodesia. Dee ran away from his abusive father and lived for a year on the streets before social workers placed him in an orphanage. He used anger to mask learning disabilities before being assessed and sent to a special needs school.

His abilities at boxing and rugby and kind benefactors earned him scholarships at better schools in Zimbabwe and England. His natural ability with people led him to work with Outward Bound-first in Africa and then in Canada.

He later moved to Vancouver to work as an alternative program worker with youngsters with learning disabilities similar to his own. "They wondered why I wasn't a teacher or a counsellor," he remembers. "They told me to take my own advice and challenge myself."

Dee signed on to literacy programs and earned his high school equivalency and counselling certificate at Vancouver Community College.

"Once I had a taste of succeeding in a college, I did a program that was transferable to university." His social service worker certificate led him to try child and youth care studies for one year "and I ended up staying because I really enjoyed it."

His return to Harare last year was bittersweet. "Children as young as eight are prostituting themselves for a bag of groceries. Nearly 25 per cent of the population has AIDS or HIV. There are families headed by children."

Now engaged, Dee says it's unlikely he would return to Zimbabwe permanently, but "once you've been to Africa you can never walk away. I'd love to give something back. I'd love to work for the UN. All this has made me realize I'm connected to something bigger than myself."