Zaahedah Vally hails from from Nelspruit, Mpumalanga. In 2008 she completed a short course in Marketing Management with the University of South Africa (UNISA). It is here that she pursued a Bachelor of Arts degree in International Relations- which she obtained in 2012. Currently, Zaahedah works as a self-employed school tutor, offering both primary and high school tuition and homework supervision in a variety of subjects. She attributes excellence and the setting of high quality standards, as factors that have contributed to the tutees’ consistently outstanding performance. Zaahedah also takes part in freelance projects for a global speech and search technology company- Appen Butler Hill, in this role; she transcribes, translates, and performs web-search evaluation tasks. In these projects, she has learned to manage time and deadlines effectively, without any supervision. With the ASRI Future Leaders Program, Zaahedah hopes to establish a knowledge base in both local and international politics- a heart’s cry to which she was destined since her UNISA days. With hard work and determination, Zaahedah hopes to commit to the ideals of the program so that she can apply the teachings toward a socially just South African society.