Story and pictures by Thomas Ngala
“There are no failures, there are always lessons” these are wise words by Tracy Lwando, a Lusaka-based journalist who recently graduated with a diploma in journalism and public relations at Evelyn Hone College.
Tracy’s journey in the media has been full of challenges. In 2016, the young lady enrolled in a 3-year program to study journalism and public relations at Evelyn Hone College. Under normal circumstances, she was supposed to graduate in 2019.
However, Tracy could not graduate in 2019 as she had missing results from her second year. Frustration struck resulting from the same. Tracy felt demoralized and drained. The worst part about this was her seeing pictures of her former classmates graduating, which made Tracy feel like she was not going to succeed.
Like many others, Tracy would have chosen to wallow in her then failures. But the brave journalist soldiered on. She had to rewrite the missing courses until she finally graduated this year.
Because every person is imperfect, Tracy had her flaws, which made her feel she wouldn’t make a good journalist. She is a fast speaker, has a funny accent, and swallows words.
During her study, she volunteered to work for the college radio station, which gave her practical newsroom experience.
In her second year, she joined DJ Ink on his musical show, which aired on weekdays in the morning. Tracy grew in radio presentation and built her confidence.
In 2019, she found herself working as a call centre agent in Lusaka, a job she kept for some months. Her time as a call centre agent boosted her confidence and allowed her to work on her speech and articulation.
In 2020, she applied as an intern at Millennium radio, an institution that has allowed her to grow professionally. Later, Tracy was moved to production and took on an opportunity to host the Millennium TV breakfast show dubbed Millennium Kwacha.
The vibrant journalist co-hosts the said show with Karen Chiinda. After graduating this year, Tracy felt, “this was one last missing piece to my dream of being a certified Journalist and Public Relations.”
Tracy aspires to be someone who will have a positive impact on the lives of many. Despite not seeing herself being a journalist all her life, her desire is to remain in the communication circles. This is contained in a report published by Daily Star Zambia.