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Wash Emergency Program Manager: Action Contre la Faim
Deadline: close of business 17 May 2013

Contract: 4 months

ACF is a registered charity, founded in 1979. Action Contre la Faim operates in 41 countries. The international network of Action Contre la Faim is represented in Paris, London, Madrid, New York and Montreal. Teams in the field combat hunger on four fronts: nutrition, food security, health, water and sanitation.

ACF is seeking to fill the vacancy of Wash Emergency Program Manager based Masvingo. The WASH E PM is expected to have an understanding and knowledge of the WASH sector within the Zimbabwean context; experience in management of WASH works, bidding and contracting process; and exceptional ability to influence in an advisory capacity to ensure good quality implementation for beneficiaries and donors, organizational learning and contribute to broader policy analysis. Additionally the candidate must have excellent communication, interpersonal and analytical skills.

The Main objectives of the position will be
- Program Management, Program Monitoring & Technical Backstopping
- Team Capacity Building and Human Resource Management
- Internal and external (with Authorities/NGOs/partners/EHA) coordination
- Program Design & Development
- Planning, reporting and context analysis
- Ensure quality standards of works are met consistently
- Ensure in collaboration with the logistics department that items are procured in time, at optimal cost and to the required quality standard.

Education and Experience
- A University degree in Water Technology, Hydrology or Civil Engineering or other – WASH related topic (Engineering, Public Health, Water Resource Management etc.)
- A Masters Degree an added advantage
- Previous Project management experience with ACF WASH
- Previous experience in an international humanitarian organisation
- Emergency WASH experience essential, in Cholera a plus
- Urban WASH experience a strong plus

Required skills
- High capacity programme manager (proven management experience) able to manage multiple programs simultaneously
- Emergency WASH experience, particularly in Cholera a strong plus, or at least strong understanding of key aspects of emergency WASH response
- Engineering background – Urban WASH engineering experience a strong plus; or at least good technical understanding peri-urban-urban WASH technologies/systems – motor pumps, sewerage systems, pipeline networks, water treatment
- Good reporting and English language skills
- Able to work under stressful conditions, responsive, quick to react in emergencies, flexible regarding travel and stay in the field (Ability to live alone for weeks at a time)
- Good control of personal stress, and good diplomacy skills
- Able to maintain good relations with local authorities and national staff
- Commitment to training and developing capacity of staff
- Good organizational skills
- Previous Project management experience with ACF WASH a strong plus

Applicants should clearly indicate the post applied for on the envelope or subject line (for email). Cover letters with up-to-date detailed CVs should be forwarded to the undersigned not later than the Friday 17 May 2013 at close of business.

Please note that the successful candidates will be required to start immediately.

Email applications to: hrdpm@zw.missions-acf.org

Or

The Deputy Human Resources HOD
Action Contre La Faim (ACF)
29 Golden Stairs, Mount Pleasant, Harare
Zimbabwe

Voter registration arrests: Three activists with the Election Resource Centre were arrested on Saturday for encouraging Zimbabweans to register to vote during the country’s mobile voter registration exercise. We’ve just received this update from the Crisis in Zimbabwe Coalition about the three, who were involved in the X1G campaign:

ERC Director to hand himself over to police as volunteers remain in custody

The Election Resource Centre (ERC) Director, Tawanda Chimhini will today, Monday 13 May, hand himself over to the police in a bid to secure the release of the three volunteers that were arrested by police in Borrowdale on Saturday 11 May.

The three volunteers namely, Farai Saungweme, Wadzanai Nyaku and Moses Chikura have been in custody for the last 48 hours after police handed them over to the Law and Order Section after their arrest.

The trio had been carrying out activities under the ERC’s popular 1st Time Voter Generation (X1G) campaign aimed at encouraging youths to register as voters when they were inexplicably arrested.

Speaking to the Crisis Report, the ERC Director, Tawanda Chimhini speculated that the arrests could be a ploy to unjustifiably charge the organization under section 40 of the Zimbabwe Electoral Act, which forbids individuals from conducting voter education without seeking permission from the Zimbabwe Electoral Commission (ZEC).

“It is not clear what they are being charged with but the likelihood is that this could be a way of preferring charges against the organization itself. It’s possible that we may face charges of engaging in voter education illegally but such a charge would be unfounded because the X1G project has been ongoing for months now and it is an exercise meant to encourage the youth to register to vote and not to educate them on how to vote,” said Chimhini who revealed that he would be handing himself over to the police later today as a representative of the organization.

Chimhini said the arrests were totally unwarranted but were hardly surprising given that there was an emerging pattern of harassment that his organization had noted of late as some members of the police took it upon themselves to disrupt their activities.

“Just last Wednesday, we had the police barring us from carrying out our activities at the Great Zimbabwe University in Masvingo. They informed me that we needed to get clearance from the Governor before we could encourage young people to register. I don’t think that it’s necessary for me to be granted permission to speak to the youth who are my peers about registering to vote,” said Chimhini.

He said it was baffling that the police were disrupting their work when the X1G initiative had received a lot of traction among the youth and electoral stakeholders such as the Zimbabwe Electoral Commission (ZEC) who have been actively participating in the ZiFM and Star FM radio programs that the ERC was flighting.

“We have had ZEC officials featuring on our radio programs on ZiFM and Star FM and we have also had them on board for some of our other initiatives around encouraging the youth to register. If these activities were in contravention of any statute then we expect that ZEC would have informed us. So these arrests are hard to explain,” said Chimhini.

Chimhini revealed that the three volunteers were holding up well although one of them was experiencing depression and had not been able to eat since Saturday whilst the families of the volunteers were not pleased given that their incarcerated relatives had not committed any crime.

It is always refreshing to read “news” from a different perspective and not just the traditional reliance on “traditional” news gatherers and writers informing us about what is making the world turn or burn.

In the age of information clutter with the rapid rise of the so-called information society where anyone with a mobile phone can access hundreds and hundreds of news websites, getting stories from a “street” perspective can not only be attractive for readers seeking a shift from our prosaic and predictable political stories, but could well give fresh insights for citizen journalism theorists.

This is what kalabashmedia.com sets out to do.

In their blurb, Kalabash Media, which launches today 13 May at 1500hrs, says its work is a collaborative effort of “social media enthusiasts” who “write the news from their different perspectives,” and as we already know about Zimbabwean journalism, the polarisation that emerged in the past decade has only seen citizens frown at some news outlets.

And journalists themselves from different stables have fashioned themselves as not kindred spirits but rather virtual adversaries.

Virtual adversaries indeed, what with the polarisation being taken to cyberspace bulletin boards!

So, an initiative like kalabashmedia.com could be refreshing despite what some critics would readily say putting journalism practice in the hands of untrained practitioners and only spells disaster.

But as the blurb has it, theirs is “a group of urbanite contributors with a knack for telling their stories and reporting on events with a fresh twist. From the Streets to the Web.”

It reminds of the Rising Voices project run by Global Voices online where communities pushed to the periphery of dominant news agendas are given a chance to tell their own stories.

kalabashmedia.com could just be another cousin of the weblog where folks post their musings about virtually anything, yet the very idea that they are fashioning it as a news site only ups their relevance especially at a time when dozens of news websites on Zimbabwe can be found with some purported to be hosted by professional journalists rather reading like products of chaps who took in generous amounts of calabashes!

kalabashmedia.com promises that “You will think, you will laugh…and if not….Frowning faces make for good headlines!” and in a country where there is a lot of anger issues, kalabashmedia.com seeks to make light of these circumstances albeit in a rather “newsy” sort of way.

It could well be something that will provide space for locally relevant crowd sourced content, moreso as the country heads for another “watershed” election. We will sure need the “people’s voice.” (Pun intended!)

There is always something of a culture shock each time you move to a new city, whether it’s a bustling metropolis or a small city the kind where everyone knows everyone.

And for me returning to Harare after having lived here a decade ago is something that I am treating with a little trepidation.

After all, so much has changed in the past decade, from the growing population to the deluge of ex-Japanese vehicles clogging the streets.

Nothing has changed in the form of government and governance, but this is an obvious story that has been rehashed for so long it has become tedious because apparently the more you curse the oligarchs, the more they dig in, so why give yourself an ulcer.

I travelled in a kombi from Westlea to the city centre and felt choked by the traffic gridlock and watched as the kombi driver assumed a Formula One persona and I could only ask a friend how the motorists escaped the wrath of road rage.

Yet it seemed to me everyone here has accepted this – albeit grudgingly – as a part of their daily grind as they attempt to navigate these mean streets during the morning rush to get to work.

It’s something terrible nativising yourself to a life of misery, yet you still have to live with it, after all, there is nothing you can do about it.

I saw a single lane street turned into a four lane autobahn as motorists and kombis competed for space, and the question to ask came naturally for me, perhaps as someone just coming in from another city where the ubiquity of traffic cops cannot be escaped: “Are there no cops along the way?”

And all the way from Westlea to the CBD no green arms waving, signaling the motorists to stop and perhaps try and create order out this chaos. Or in fact fleece a few greenbacks from already enraged motorists.

Yet it is perhaps something to be expected in a big city where a vehicle census would produce numbers that show a rapid growth of cars per capita but very little or nothing in the form of developing the road network to accommodate all these carbon expelling beasts.

I want to imagine that it is not just transport that will keep me in awe in my first week here, because anything else would be a no-no, and as a virtual outsider trying to learn the ways of this host city, it is inevitable to make comparisons with my native Bulawayo and in the process make prejudiced judgments about the big city and its people.

Demagogues get elected because their jingoism and populism is magnified by a media beholden to them, and when they assume office they proceed to dismantle the very institutions that got them elected so as to perpetuate their rule. Kunda Dixit, Jury Member of the Unesco/Guillermo Cano World Press Freedom Prize from 2000-2005. – Extracted from Pressing for Freedom – 20 Years of World Press Freedom Day*

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Mahathir (Mahomad) says we will bury you, I said, “you are 87 years old. You shouldn’t be talking about burying people. You should be thinking about your own grave.” Anwa Ibrahim, Malaysia opposition leader. – From the Financial Times, May 4, 2013*

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To expect the country (Italy) to pay its debts as it did decades ago is to expect an 85 year old man to drink the way he did at university. – Christopher Caldwell, Financial Times, May, 4, 2013*