My name is Casim Nkolimbo; I am from Zimbabwe, the southernmost region of the African continent.
I grew up with nurses in my family and lived with my older sister, who was a nurse. I was greatly inspired by the great respect she commanded in the community and the passion with which she carried out her role in a disadvantaged rural community.
Another opportunity that further strengthened my desire to become a nurse presented itself when I was at boarding school. I tripped and sustained a twisted arm and was transferred to a Mission hospital without my parents. The short period I spent there alone gave me some time to closely observe how much the nurses contributed to the well-being of their communities. 
I was strongly motivated to become a nurse from that time onwards, spending my free time reading my sister’s old, torn nursing notes. Some senior colleagues picked up this habit at a governmental institution I worked at in 1999. As a result, I was nominated to be seconded to a three-year nurse training course in July 1999.
During the training programme, I interacted with many injured patients and developed an interest in Accident and Emergency care, which I pursued and thus ended up working as a remote site emergency care nurse in Sudan in 2006.
This career spanned more than 12 years in both North and South Sudan, an austere, conflict-ridden environment, where I gained vast experience in providing trauma care to a wide variety of all complex injuries, including gunshot wounds and mine blast injuries. I enjoy teaching and developing other junior staff in my place of work.
I moved to the UK in 2019 to enable my children and family the opportunity to acquire a sound education and widen their career prospects.