A GRANDMOTHER and hospice worker is set to graduate with a degree from the University of Essex...at the age of 75.

Former refugee Betty Mlandeli from Southend is still working as a nursing assistant and wants to help even more people after completing her degree at the Wivenhoe campus.

She will become one of the university’s oldest graduating students when she receives her degree at the ceremony at the campus on Wednesday.

She is set to receive her degree in Therapeutic Communication and Therapeutic Organisation.

Betty said it has been a very stimulating experience.

She said: “I am proud of myself and what I have achieved at my age and I am looking forward to helping as many people as I can with the skills I have learnt.

“For me, my degree was not just about wanting to be a graduate but about wanting to do something which can benefit others.

“I loved the psychoanalytical dynamics. It has helped me understand myself and understand others. You learn to think before you act and think deeper than what you see.”

Betty has worked part-time for Fair Havens Hospice in Westcliff for the past seven years, offering palliative care to people in their own homes.

She hopes her degree will help enhance the support she gives.

Betty came to the UK in 2002 and previously worked as an experienced nurse in Zimbabwe.

Her extensive career has included being a specialist theatre nurse, midwife, matron and a nurse for the Air Force of Zimbabwe.

She became interested in studying Therapeutic Communication and Therapeutic Organisation at the University of Essex after her daughter and cousin completed the course.

She studied at both Southend and Colchester campuses.

Betty said: “I found it so inspiring when they told me what they were learning.

“I thought this course could really help enhance my skills at work.

“I just woke up one morning and thought ‘This is the course for me’.

“I felt I needed to do it.

“My ambition in life has always been to help people and I knew I could help a lot of people with the skills I will get from this course.”

She added: “My experience at Essex was very good.

“It was stimulating and is so relevant to today’s society which is full of stress and distress.”

Betty said she feels like a different person altogether -replenished, refreshed and with updated knowledge thanks to her studies.

She said she can now understand herself and others better, so she can interact with others better than before.

And Betty is not ready to stop learning as she now has her sights set on studying a Masters degree.

Betty was widowed in 2000 and moved to the UK in 2002 to visit her daughter.

Due to growing problems in her home country, she applied for refugee status, which was granted in 2009.

In 2014, she won indefinite leave to remain status in the UK and can apply for UK citizenship in 2019.

Despite extensive nursing experience, visa problems meant she was unable to register as a nurse with the NHS, so she worked as a nursing assistant, primarily working in nursing homes.