Michelle mentioned that Zdena had been a Mandela Rhodes Scholar and had completed her Honours degree in Industrial Psychology at the Nelson Mandela Metropolitan University. As a Mandela Rhodes Scholar, she had begun to contribute to the Mandela Rhodes Scholars Thought Leader blog on the Mail and Guardian website and she had discovered her love of writing.

She came to Khulumani with a passion for writing and started working as Khulumani's 'Histories from Below' project officer, facilitating the project that helped victims and survivors of the gross human rights violations of the past to tell their stories in their own words. The project expanded peoples' understanding of the power of telling their stories for educating young people so that the historical record is infused with the memories of the experiences of those who lived at the forefront of the anti-apartheid struggle over several decades.

The booklets that have been produced are used at schools in the areas where these events took place and have helped to build bridges between an older generation and the generation from which will come our future leaders.

Zdena explained that her work then grew to use her capacity-building skills to facilitate that those who had largely been excluded from direct participation in government decision-making, should learn the power of information and the value of using the Promotion of Access to Information (PAIA) legislation to inform their struggles for effective and participatory governance at local government level.

Through Zdena's work, Khulumani came to host the secretariat of the National Civil Society Network on PAIA, a role in which it continues to serve a coordinating function. Zdena is also featured on the training DVD on how communities can apply PAIA that was produced by SAHA (South African History Archives), one of Khulumani’s partners.

Michelle then asked Zdena about her future plans. Zdena explained that she had learned to love the work of empowering grassroots citizens with skills to assert their perspectives in decision-making forums and that she wished to return to this kind of work, rather than finding herself in a position of designing policy without the participation of those who would be most affected by that policy.

Khulumani remains deeply grateful of the major contribution that Zdena made to the enhancement of the skills and capacities of its now nearly 70,000 members nationally.