When I was trying to explain Zimbabwe’s National Youth Training Programme to someone today, the first words that came out of my mouth were “youth militia” – not youth service. This isn’t surprising given how many youth service graduates have been manipulated into being agents of political violence. Youth Initiative for Democracy in Zimbabwe (YIDEZ) is launching a campaign for the reform of this youth training programme into a non-partisan youth empowerment programme.

The Zimbabwe National Youth Training Program (NYTP) was established in July 2001. Its aim was to instil patriotism and self reliance amongst other values that were never practiced. Training at the camps was stopped in 2007 but graduates from these institutions are still being deployed to carry out partisan political work and some are serving as youth officers and are paid using tax payers’ money. Nine years since its inception, with 80,000 graduates, the curriculum of the program still remains ‘top secret’.

The Global Political Agreement provides that; the program shall be run in a non-partisan manner. The Ministry of Youth Development, Indigenization & Empowerment recently initiated a process that intends to reintroduce the NYTP. Part of the process will include public consultations.

As a member of Civic Society, YIDEZ is concerned by the Ministry’s limited engagement of the key stakeholder (YOUTH) in this process. In 2001 the program was implemented without the input, consent and involvement of young people and the general public.  If this program is intended for the benefit of young people, then this oversight cannot be repeated.  As the youth, we are saying:

• We demand genuine reform and consultations in the development and delivery of the National Youth Service Training Program
• We demand transparency and that our voice, as the youth of Zimbabwe, be heard in the curriculum development process
• Nothing for us without us

To join the campaign and find out more, contact YIDEZ on yidez@zol.co.zw or +263-4-776772

The past times that I have put my thoughts on paper I have been talking woman on this and that. You will have to forgive me for that. I know no other life. If I was a guy, sure I would write about guy issues, but I am not. I am going to write about what I know best which is being a woman and its challenges, and boy are there many in this day and age. We are still pretty much in the stone age if women are being married by a dozen to one man and some women still don’t have a choice about whom they get married to, let alone what age they get married at.

I have come to realize in the past month that I have come back to work at Kubatana that there is more to life than what meets the eye. I did not know that I had so many misconceptions about marriage until it was shown to me. For one, your husband does not need a good reason to want a divorce from you. He can say that he has grown tall and he doesn’t want to stay with a wife who is not growing as tall as he is, for all the court cares. There is no way you can say that’s a silly reason. The court will call it irretrievable breakdown and just like that you are divorced. For those that have not caught my flow I am just trying to highlight some misconceptions that we have as women when it comes to marriage.

The other thing that happens during divorce proceedings is that fifty fifty song that has been sung to us, is quite misleading. When you divorce you don’t get fifty percent, you take what you worked for, and what has your name on it. The fifty percent comes when the two of you had duel ownership. If he was buying cars or bought the house you lived in and your name appears on the title did then you get fifty fifty? And don’t think because you are the mother of the children that you automatically get the kids. The court looks at who earns the most money even though it’s advisable for a child to stay with its mother. For those who did not know, when your husband commits adultery you can file a lawsuit not against him, but his partner. Now how many court sessions are you going to go to, if he is a born cheat? How many women are you going to sue in the lifetime of your marriage?

Crazy isn’t it.

Zimbabwe is just emerging from its worst time ever and though people are not yet content, and are still in the air of uncertainty as to what the future holds for them, it is worth acknowledging that the previous year has been a great relief to many of us. In as much as we wish for the betterment of our country in every walk of life, it is sad to note that the qualities, attitudes, and tendencies that we developed during this negative time are still haunting us. Below are some examples:

- Every morning and evening as people come to and from work, transport operators who demand double the normal fair rob them of their dear dollars.

- Now that it is the season for selling tobacco, farmers are flocking into the city with their produce, and prices of goods in town have gone up.

- It is not even surprising to see people wasting production ours loitering in town, doing absolutely nothing. Yes it was possible to make money out of nothing during the past but now its different.

- If you lend money to someone you find it very difficult to get it back. Not because he/she does not have it, but only that one thinks one day it will be forgotten, just like that.

- If one needs to change from one currency to the other, the bank is the last resort. First people try the next-door, then the street.

- Towards month end it is common to see people spending to the last cent, because inflation scared them that far.

- Even national service providers are still charging speculative prices.

- Everyone has multiple bank accounts, but only a few use even one, fearing that if you deposit cash one day you might not be able to withdraw it. If you close the accounts: ” pamwe ku’burner’ kuchadzoka”.

- Every teacher’s home has a classroom.

- If you commit a crime you just share the proceeds with a policeman.

The caption from The Herald front page on Friday sums up more than this photograph – it seems sadly apt for the progress of Zimbabwe’s inclusive government as well: “Morgan Tsvangirai (out of picture).”

Writing in Business Day last week, Allister Sparks argues that Zimbabwe’s inclusive government is not working – and that it needs to be scrapped. Whilst there’s a lot about the inclusive government not working that I’d agree with, the solution Sparks outlines is optimistic – if Mugabe isn’t willing to see the inclusive government work, why would he consider internationally supervised elections in which all citizens can vote – without the ability to gate keep through the voters’ roll. And in the mean time, what about Zimbabwe’s dream of a new Constitution – and a new political framework that guarantees democratic elections which can usher in a government elected freely by the people?

It’s time for South Africa, as the leading power in SADC, to say, “Enough!” If President Zuma has any political balls at all, he should tell Mugabe so during his visit to Harare this week.

He should tell him the GPA is obviously not working, that it is clear Mugabe is determined not to allow it to work, and that the South African Government is therefore going to call on SADC, as guarantor of the deal, to declare it to have been irretrievably violated and so nullified — and to demand the holding of an early election so that a new government with a genuine public mandate can take over.

This election should be supervised — not just observed — by a large team of electoral specialists from the SADC countries, especially South Africa. Moreover it should not be run on the basis of Zimbabwe’s hopelessly defective voters’ roll but by letting all adult citizens vote as has been done with the first elections of all newly independent countries in Africa.

Zuma should tell Mugabe, too, that if he and his ZANU-PF cohorts refuse to accept such a process, South Africa will press for Zimbabwe’s membership of SADC to be suspended, and for any regime that might be unilaterally installed not to be recognised by SADC and the African Union. The country would then be isolated.

Only South Africa has the influence and power to do this. If necessary we could do it unilaterally. It’s time we acted on behalf of the people of Zimbabwe and the whole region, to say nothing of our own image as a nation whose internationally assisted rebirth surely imposes a moral obligation on us.

But don’t hold your breath. Decisiveness is not Zuma’s strong suit on any issue.

From one of Kubatana’s subscribers living in Glen Norah, Harare:

My dreams for Zimbabwe are to see a transformed nation. A nation where rule of law exists. A nation united and growing to be Africa’s power house. My dream for Zimbabwe is to make Zimbabwe the breadbasket that it is supposed to be. It is to see a Zimbabwe with freedom of expression and democracy. I mean real freedom, not talked freedom. To see the politicians respecting the human race; not treating them as their stools to stand on, and only to throw them away. – James