A PAINFUL time it is always, to lose one of your own. When the body loses a leg, the hand, or the finger, the gap is instantly felt, because the body cannot function as it used to, and how difficult it is to adapt without that part. 

Such is the feeling that the NUST family has, as we experience the loss of Mr Dineck Kurira, a Senior Technical Assistant in the Department of Chemical Engineering.  

Having grown his career within NUST grounds, Mr Kurira’s 24 years of employment prove his value and role he played in nurturing students in the Faculty of Engineering. He joined the University as a temporary full-time cleaner in the Department of Electronic Engineering in 1994, before being appointed a full-time messenger in 1996. 

Mr Kurira was then appointed as Technical Assistant for the Chemical Engineering Department in 2004, a post he used to prove his knowledge and expertise as he was then promoted to Senior Technical Assistant in the same Department, a position he held until the time of his death.  

“I knew Dineck as an Assistant Technician when I was a student in 2004 and he was very helpful and kind,” said Ms Nonhlanhla Mnguni, the Chairperson of the Chemical Engineering Department. 

“I then got to work with him in 2010 and he was a very easy person to work with.”

She further highlighted that the department has lost a highly valuable and respected member of their team. 

“He was more than just a workmate, he was a friend and a brother to most colleagues in the department,” one member of the department said in his tribute to Mr Kurira. “During social events in the department, he is the one who was in the forefront to the extent that he unified the non-academic and the academic staff within our section.”

Other members described him as a vital team member, who was committed to the success of the department by offering a fully-fledged technical service to the student. 

Mr Kurira will be buried in Rusape on Wednesday, 7 October 2020.