The Global Journal has released the top one hundred best Non Governmental Organizations in the world with Wikimedia Foundation topping the list for its efforts of coming up with the famous Wikipedia. According to Global Journal the criteria which was used to come up with the top hundred covered areas like:

Innovation
Effectiveness
Impact
Efficiency and value for money
Transparency and Accountability
Sustainability
Strategic and Financial Management
Peer Review

Some of the big organisations ranked in the top ten and operating in Zimbabwe include Oxfam, Care International, International Rescue Committee and Medicine Sans Frontiers. The only African based organisation in the top ten list is a Kenyan organiation called Ushahidi. The organisation specialises in developing free and open source software for information collection, visualization and interactive mapping. Ushahidi developed a software package, to map incidents of violence and peace efforts from reports submitted via the web and mobile phones during the Kenyan elections in 2007.

Source

The threat of the downing of tools by Zimbabwe’s civil servants has reached fever peak with the workers representatives embarking on a campaigning streak to mobilize support for the strike. The workers are demanding minimum of US$538 per month for the least paid employee, which they reflects the poverty datum line. The impact of the first one-day nationwide strike yesterday was mainly felt in the education sector and in high-density schools were teachers failed to turn up for work leading to an assumption that the workers are not pulling in the same direction as some government workers reported for duty.

The year 2011 was a year of un-coordinated job action by various government departments demanding better salaries. Depending on how important the department was to the inclusive government at that time some government workers embarked on a strike and forced the government into submission.  An investigation of how the government has awarded increments and allowances to some of its employees leaves one wondering if some government employees are more special than others.

The most recent and more controversial was the paying out of allowances to Members of Parliament in December 2011 just after the Minister of Finance had indicated in his monetary statement that the government had no money for civil servants pay increments. The legislators had threatened not pass the budget in Parliament unless they were paid their sitting allowances, which the government owed them back to 2008. The same legislators went on to demand top of the range luxury vehicles whilst some teachers in the harsh rural areas like Nyamapanda are struggling without the hardship allowances just to motivate them to work. In July 2011 a paltry salary increment by the government was met with mixed reactions from the employees as they complain that it was far below the poverty datum line, which stood at US$502 at that time.

In April 2011 magistrates stopped work at Zimbabwe’s courts nationwide in protest over poor remuneration and they were immediately awarded the increment.  Not to be outdone fellow court workers, the prosecutors, downed tools in protest over salary discrepancies between them and magistrates.

Funds from diamond sales and the special treatment of certain civil servants whilst neglecting others has fueled plans for a nationwide strike by the civil servants. If the legislators can manage to pay each other a whopping US$15 000 some may argue that maybe the Minister of Finance has a secret pool where he can access funds in times of crisis.

The 24 hour information blackout is a protest against the anti-piracy laws, the Stop Online Piracy Act and the PROTECT IP Act in America.

Part of the story published on its wikinews site Wikipedia says,

The English version of the online encyclopedia Wikipedia will go offline for 24 hours in protest against American anti-piracy laws, the Stop Online Piracy Act and the PROTECT IP Act (PIPA). The blackout will start at midnight EST (05:00 UTC) on Wednesday. The action was confirmed on Monday night with three Wikipedia administrators closing one of the most commented on policy discussions in the history of Wikipedia. According to the Wikipedia page where the issue was debated, 479 users supported a blackout only for users in the United States (with other readers seeing a banner instead), while 591 supported a global blackout.

It is the New Year and I believe most of you celebrated the New Year with a party with your loved ones. It is time to realign your energy. Start the new year by loving yourself because you cannot love others if you don’t start by loving yourself.  Learn to forgive others though sometimes it is difficult to let go of grudges. Sometimes you have to let go off the past and renew your vision. If you were not talking to your neighbour in the previous year because his dog gave you sleepless nights its time to surprise him with a morning greeting. Make your health your first priority every morning because if you fall sick all your plans for the year will fail.

Set your New Year resolutions correctly and be positive, don’t be like me … I have already broken one my New Year resolutions! Choose to be a leader in 2012 and not to always be in the background. If the elections being planned in this country are going to be held this year surprise people by throwing in your name to be voted for, be it for council, parliament or presidential elections. Create an opportunity for yourself in 2012 when others are complaining of economic down turns – who knows maybe you may hit the jackpot!

Have hope that everything will be fine in 2012 and make your dreams come alive.

Happy New Year!

Canadian youths were ejected from the ongoing COP 17, United Nations climate change negotiations after they engaged in a non-disruptive, non-violent protest – but effective way of putting their message across to the their country’s Environment Minister in Durban, South Africa.

The youth were ejected after turning their backs on Canada’s Environment Minister Peter Kent during his opening address at the COP 17, United Nations climate change negotiations.

Music is a big business and it has transformed people’s lives the world over.  In western countries by just producing one good album it can change one’s fortunes for the rest of his/her life. Media plays an important role in promoting artists music and with bad media publicity it can also destroy an artist’s career. Here in Zimbabwe our own local music artists, especially the urban grooves artists rely on the media to promote their music and some of them enjoy massive airplay on the state broadcasting stations. The rise in popularity for urban grooves was mainly spearheaded by the introduction of 75% local content on national radio stations by the then Minister of Information and Publicity Professor Jonathan Moyo a couple of years ago.  To some local artists it was a blessing to them since competition from foreign music was reduced. However to some artists after rising to stardom their names now appear in the history book for the wrong reasons.

The lyrics of the music composed by these urban grooves artists has attracted a huge following especially amongst the youth. The message in the music is usually associated with love, cash and the ghetto lifestyle. Instead of promoting their music through good publicity, recently it has become the opposite. After starting on a positive note most of these young artists have attracted bad publicity to their music by trying to live the life they sing about in their songs. Some may say the problem starts when these young artists try to merge our local culture with the western culture in their music thereby creating an identity crisis.  Zimbabwe has been blessed with many young talented musicians but most of them have gone quiet after failing to handle fame. The toll of a celebrity lifestyle has proved to be a heavy burden with many young artists falling by the wayside through drugs, prostitution, alcohol abuse and unprofessional contact.

Piracy is also taking its share of problems for these music artists resulting in many of them singing for peanuts. In trying to increase popularity in the hope of pushing music sales some local artists are now using media for the wrong reasons. A couple of a years ago a creative and promising young artist was sentenced to do community service after being found in possession of marijuana and as if this was not enough the same young man could not keep his microphone in his pants as he went around impregnating many girls. After singing so much about money and a high expensive lifestyle another local artist made headlines recently when his sex video was leaked to the press. With this kind of behavior and bad publicity it will take a very long time for our local artists to separate their private life from their public one.