Zozibini Tunzi wants to help people settle their student debt

The longest-reigning Miss Universe in history Zozibini Tunzi has dreams of helping people fund student debt. She specifically wants to do so for those who are unable to continue with their studies due to outstanding fees.

This is one of the dreams she shared in a recent interview with Arabile Gumede in 702’s ‘Other People’s Money’ feature on Women’s Day (two years to the day since she was crowned Miss South Africa).

Gumede is currently standing in for Bruce Whitfield who hosts The Money Show. 

Thanks to the pandemic, Tunzi holds the record as longest-reigning Miss Universe, breaking the record previously held by Leila Lopes (2011), who was Miss Universe for 464 days.

She began the interview by noting how the pandemic hampered her ability to travel and physically be in the spaces she needed to be in to do her outreach work. However, the circumstance prompted Tunzi and her team to rethink outreach work in the virtual space and readjust the way she did her work in an effort to continue to make an impact in any way she could.

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The conversation then moved to money and Tunzi said that she doesn’t think she ever really thought about money enough to have a “position” on it. 

“Where I am now is very very different to where I was before… I think right now, as soon as I won Miss South Africa, as soon as I won Miss Universe, people used to ask me ‘what does this mean to you?’ and I used to tell them ‘you know what? For me, this means the beginning of building some kind of generational wealth for my family because we never really had that in the past’.” 

She recalled how her parents only earned enough for the moment and how she now has the opportunity to think about and plan ahead for her family and the members of her family that are yet to be born. 

According to Tunzi, being in the position that she is in has enabled her to throw herself into being able to plan her financial future. She has admitted that “the world of money” remains confusing for her but she has the help of bankers and financial planners to help her navigate through it.

“It made me wonder what are we really learning at schools because it is not really a financial issue but a life skill that everyone should have.”

– Zozibini Tunzi

A life skill that she feels could have better equipped her to develop a habit of saving – something she first had experience with in the form of using an old two-litre bottle to toss loose change into. According to Tunzi, she didn’t often wait until the bottle was filled before spending her savings. 

She concluded the interview by commenting on what she would do if money was no object and said she would fund each of her parents’ wildest dreams (whatever they may be) and fund people’s student debt. 

“Because I’m such a humanitarian at heart, I would probably, if I could… pay for anyone who is in a student debt situation who can’t get back to school because I’ve been there before.”

Listen to Zozibini Tunzi on The Money Show below:

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