Baba Tee, distributions happen in our communities & we all know that ZANUPF treat these handouts bought by tax payers’ money or donated by western countries as if they were bought by ZANUPF – it is wrong period! It is citizens’ right to belong to a party of their choice.
UNICEF supports young people who have brilliant ideas but lack the resources to turn ideas into reality. These young innovators generate their own game-changing ideas and make positive contribution towards community needs.
The Generation Unlimited Youth Challenge, for instance encourages young innovators to design solutions to improve education, employment and civic engagement.
It inspires young people with brilliant ideas; but without key resources to bring them to reality. This includes young refugees, those who face daily discrimination due to their ethnicity, their gender or their disability and those who are disadvantaged by poverty.
Harare, Zimbabwe – In a country where the average textbook- pupil ratio stands at 1:8 at O’level, four 23-year-olds balanced between gruelling final year university studies and launching a technology start-up that could solve Zimbabwe’s challenge of textbook scarcity and unaffordability. Team Amigo, as Simbarashe Duane Andre, Blessing-Mau Maunze, Brighton Mahatchi and Farayi Goronga, call themselves, entered the Generation Unlimited Youth Challenge with the assistance of UNICEF Zimbabwe partner, BOOST. They emerged as one of the 5 global winnerswho received $20,000 each in April 2019 from Generation Unlimited for developing an application that delivers learning materials to students at low cost.
Click HERE to access the application guide and apply. This Application Guide will lead you through the process of applying to Generation Unlimited Youth Challenge!. If it seems like a lot, don’t worry—we promise it’s way, way easier (and shorter!) than it looks. In fact, all of the questions are designed to help your team submit the best possible application, and we’ll even give you some tips along the way. During the Workshop, we’ll work together to create solutions to challenges around education and training, employment, entrepreneurship, equity and engagement but the most important step in creating a successful solution is to get a good understanding of the problem. This Guide will lead you through identifying and analyzing a problem faced by you and your peers.
Supporters of President Emmerson Mnangagwa’s ruling ZANU-PF party celebrate after the Constitutional Court confirmed Mnangagwa’s disputed July 30 election victory in Harare, Zimbabwe August 24, 2018. REUTERS/Philimon Bulawayo
A government that is honest, has integrity and a conscience.
A government that is clean, efficient and honorable.
Zimbabwe’s ruling party ZANU PF slaughered 150 cows during the annual conference held in Goromonzi, Mashonaland East Province District last week. President Mnangagwa’s regime spent over $5 million to feed at least 7 000 delegates.
Commotion at Zanu PF congress: Varaidzo Mupunga Youth League Secretary for Adminstration being dragged away by Zanu PF “Green Bomber” militia youths.
“After all the pledges, we have started collecting 150 cattle that we are assured of getting. Starting from today (yesterday), the truck is already moving around collecting the cattle to be kept at a paddock near the conference venue.”
Zanu PF Mashonaland East provincial secretary for administration Kudzai Majuru told reporters.
No more indirect genocide.
No more police beating peaceful protestors.
No more soldiers shooting unarmed citizens.
An outbreak of compassion for the people from the political elite.
And the one wish that the author of Letters From Zimbabwe – Catherine Buckle heard so many times, and which she empathise with;
“This Christmas with a government that simply does not and will not see the desperate anguish of the people, the best thing any of us can do is to not be overwhelmed but just try and help one person at a time.”
This week many Zimbabweans are doing exactly that; and it is humbling.
As I write this letter from Zimbabwe today deep purple rain clouds hang over my home town, there is neither electricity nor water but there is what the media are calling ‘feasting in a time of famine’ going on not very far away. Seven thousand Zanu PF delegates, VIPs and the country’s top leadership are at their annual conference being held in Goromonzi. Reports of 150 cows to be slaughtered, five tons of chicken and eight tons of maize meal, not to mention bread, rice, fresh produce and more. Ninety buses are providing transport, four boreholes have been drilled for water, a transformer installed for electricity with a standby generator and a car park for thousands of cars has been constructed. Apparently women selling wild fruit on the roadside and little boys watched wide-eyed yesterday as luxury vehicles swung into the venue car park, including a black Lexus sports car.
This frenzy of feasting and opulence is happening at a time when the UN says eight million people in Zimbabwe need international food aid to save them from starvation. This is more than half of our total population. The contrast with the feasting for the few and the reality for the rest of us is this: a standard monthly income of approx Z$400; one single chicken (1kg) in the supermarket today is Z$90; a ten kg bag of maize meal is Z$119; a loaf of bread is Z$18.50; one litre of milk is Z$25; one single mango is Z$20; we have water once a week if we are lucky; we only ever have electricity in the middle of the night between 10pm and 4.30am; the queues for fuel are of many hundreds of cars every day and they are always invaded by men in Zanu PF cars and government vehicles. And in the hospitals, oh God help us is all I can cry out in despair; the few doctors left in government hospitals say they are praying for their patients as they have nothing to help them with: no equipment, no medicine, no supplies. How many people are suffering and dying at home is a number we do not know, a face we cannot bear to see.
For a few days I’ve been asking people if they had one wish for Zimbabwe this Christmas what it would be. It wasn’t a political question but most of the responses were and it caused many eyes to glisten with tears as they spoke, so distraught are we all, at the shameful, desperate state of our country.
Here are some of our Christmas wishes for Zimbabwe in 2019:
Rain, rain and more rain.
An unselfish government.
Corrupt free government.
A government that is honest, has integrity and a conscience.
A government that is clean, efficient and honorable.
A government that thinks of the citizens and not themselves.
A government who realizes they are only caretakers of the country and responsible for the well being of its people.
A neutral transitional authority leading to free and fair elections.
No more indirect genocide.
No more police beating peaceful protestors.
No more soldiers shooting unarmed citizens.
An outbreak of compassion for the people from the political elite.
And the one wish that I heard so many times, and which I echo: A government that has a heart for its people; a heart filled with empathy and unselfishness.
This Christmas with a government that simply does not and will not see the desperate anguish of the people, the best thing any of us can do is to not be overwhelmed but just try and help one person at a time. This week I’ve met many who are doing exactly that and it makes me humbled and tearful, proud to be a Zimbabwean.
This will be my last Letter from Zimbabwe in 2019. Thank you for reading these letters and my books about life in Zimbabwe. Thank you for your messages, emails and contributions which keep hope alive as we strive towards a compassionate, loving, humble Zimbabwe.
For information on my books about Zimbabwe and my Beautiful Zimbabwe Calendar for 2020 go to www.lulu.com/spotlight/CathyBuckle2018 . For archives of Letters From Zimbabwe, to subscribe/unsubscribe or to contact me please visit my website http://cathybuckle.co.zw/
This is the story of one man’s encounters in the Diaspora. A journey to the unknown made from necessity, not choice, to save his family from the collapse of Zimbabwe.
Beautiful Zimbabwe is a 13 by 19 inch calendar for 2020 illustrated with full size colour photographs taken by Cathy Buckle.
After 19 years of Letters from Zimbabwe and 8 books about our tragic decline, I am delighted to present another face of our country in my Beautiful Zimbabwe Calendar2020.
Cathy Buckle is well known for her writings of daily life in Zimbabwe. These are sent to subscribers around the world and are regularly featured by a number of international print and broadcast media outlets.
The calendar features photographs of the beautiful Zimbabwean landscape, birds and wildlife. The calendar makes a perfect gift for people who love Zimbabwe. Click “more detail” and then “preview” to see the calendar in full. Preview requires Adobe Flash Playe
