I’m so wishing I was young enough to do this:

The International Youth Initiative Program

How do you want to change the world?

One year of making sense. A course in how to bring your own initiative into being.

YIP (The International Youth Initiative Program) is a one-year social entrepreneurship training for international youth ages 18 to 25.

The year combines practical work with theoretical content designed to develop your skills in leadership, facilitation and self-awareness.

Courses with international experts, innovators and world changers give you an overview of current global issues, challenges we face in society and areas where we must take an active role to create a better future.

Learn by doing – Engage with the local community in practical projects and put your new skills and theories to test.

Four-week International Internship – Experience new cultures and ways of working at projects or organization exploring issues of sustainability.

Location: Jarna Sweden – Known for initiative and innovative sustainability.

Don’t wait to take the next step in creating your future! The next YIP year begins August 2011 and ends June 2012. Application is open from January to June 2011. (Acceptance dates in March and June.)

Find out more

I am very happily proven wrong about the Zimbabwe Republic Police and their responsiveness to an attempted take over of Kuimba Shiri and Lavon Bird Gardens at Lake Chivero this weekend. This morning, I claimed that the police did nothing, but according to article by AFP this afternoon,

Zimbabwean police drove out scores of so-called war veterans and supporters of President Robert Mugabe after they declared themselves new owners of several tourist resorts, a minister and media reports said Monday. The seizures on Saturday near Lake Chivero, west of the capital Harare, were ostensibly part of Mugabe’s land reforms, launched in 2000 in what he described as a bid to correct ownership imbalances in the former British colony. But Minister of State Jameson Timba said the latest confiscations were illegal and he had called in police to put a stop to them after he received pleas from the businesses’ owners. “They were moved out yesterday by riot police,” Timba, a member of the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) which is in a power-sharing government with Mugabe’s ZANU-PF party, told AFP. “There were about 200 of them. Fortunately there was no damage to property.” Police could not be reached for comment.

Read more

Zimbabwe’s economy is struggling to recover from years of mismanagement and looting. At an event in October 2010, tourism Minister Walter Mzembi lauded the potential of the “peaceful and apolitical” tourism sector to be at the fore of this recovery.

A Mail & Guardian article in December highlighted how Zimbabwe’s economic challenges have affected the tourism industry – things like shortages, power cuts, potholes clearly make it difficult to run a business. And finding the right balance between what you charge your guests (and who, if anyone, can therefore afford to come to your destination) and what you pay your workers (and therefore how motivated and engaged they are at work) can be difficult.

But a successful tourism industry also needs tourists – and tourists, as Mzembi intimated, typically prefer peace and stability.

So factors like the “Zimbabwe Mafia” which targets cars parked at the Harare airport picking up visiting holiday makers don’t inspire confidence in would-be tourists. Similarly, events like the invasion of recreational destinations at Lake Chivero such as Kuimba Shiri on the weekend don’t send an inviting message of safety and stability. It particularly doesn’t help if the police, when called, do nothing.

If Zimbabwe values its economic recovery – which it should do, if we are ever to move out of the current bifurcated economy of impoverished majority on the one hand, and South African import dependent comprador class on the other – it needs to do more to support Zimbabweans to buy into, establish, and maintain tourism locations for a variety of local and international guests, and less to scare off would-be tourists.

Raphael Chikukwa from Zimbo Jam shares some information about a forthcoming exhibition at the National Gallery of Zimbabwe:

Hope and Despair, a new exhibition at the National Gallery in Harare, features work from nine emerging artists and gives unique visual commentaries to and interpretations of Zimbabwean contemporary life, challenging you to rethink “the obvious.”

The nine artists are Calvin Chimutuwa, Muthabisi Pili, Tafadzwa Gwetai, Portia Zvavahera, Mercy Moyo, Richard Mudariki, Warren Mapondera, Zacharia Mukwira and Virginia Chihota.

The exhibition opens on January 27.

Find out more here

To celebrate Dambudzo Marechera’s posthumous 59th birthday this year, Zimbabwean writer, editor, and anthologist, Ivor Hartmann (administrator of the official Dambudzo Marechera fan page on Facebook – endorsed by The Dambudzo Marechera Trust – with over 5,000 fans and the only consistently updated web page solely focused on Marechera), will be compiling an anthology entitled and themed Remembering Marechera. It will consist of essays, reviews, short stories, poems, etc. that follow the title/theme.

Find out more from Zimbojam

Vanilla Moon is using their coffee shop as a venue for a Blood Drive.

Date: Friday 28 January 2011
Time: 9.30-15.30
Venue: 8 Seagrave Road, Avondale (on 2nd Street, after 24hr Vet, 2nd Rd to your right)

For smaller companies, this is a great way to be involved in the community!  For larger companies, contact gbvuma [at] bloodbank [dot] co [dot] zw to organise a Blood Drive at your premises.

Blood donation is done on a voluntary basis.  The greatest payment you can have is knowing that you have helped save a fellow human being’s life.

Below are the requirements for one to be able to donate blood:
- at least 16 years of age,
- weigh at least 50kg,
- be of general good health.

Don’t know your blood group?  This is the perfect way to find out, after donating twice you will be informed of your blood group, free of charge!