If you had not heard already the National Youth Programme is going to be reintroduced under the GPA. My question is, can these centers facilitate a youth friendly environment for full participation, especially of young women. With this weak coalition government and economy do we really need this now? I think these centers should only be reopened when they ensure that they are gender sensitive and enhance a culture of learning unlike the military style designed institutions. If these centers are going to be reopened then, as the youth, we should advocate for an independent National Youth Service Commission to be put in place after the amendment of the National Youth Policy. This commission and not the inter ministerial Committee should be responsible for the formulation of the national youth service policy.

I mean hey, do you teach anybody to be patriotic or should it be instilled in us to be so? I don’t need to be trained as a soldier to feel patriotic. The National Youth Programme must be based on a shared national vision. But here is the bigger question: is Zimbabwe really prepared to have this programme again seeing that the national healing and reconciliation programme has still not reached its peak. Why open up the wounds of the people who suffered under the youth militia by reopening the same centers that taught the youth and groomed them to cause so much harm and pain. What do you think any person who had a loved one killed or maimed by these youths is going to feel after hearing that our country is still manufacturing these weapons of pain?

Before these centers are reopened the matter has to be taken to society. The minister needs a vote of confidence from parents and the youth themselves given the magnitude of alleged abuse by the so-called recruits and Zimbabweans in general who suffered under the militarized programme. Can the national budget sustain this programme given more urgent issues faced by the inclusive government such as constitutional reform, social service delivery and economic growth based on a productive and not consumptive economy?

As youth we need a non-partisan national youth service and the policy implemented should comply with the standards of the international association of national service for best practice. I think the government should temporarily postpone the reintroduction of the National Youth Programme and instead utilize the transition period to put in place measures that will ensure the programme does not carry the negative perception from the past. My bat is for the programme to be implemented fully, the government has to identify what the youth need; not what it needs and force it on the young people.

Showing status has evolved as time has taken its course in our nation. I think it has always been a human need for the creme de la creme to showcase who is who in our society. Even the not so creamy have wanted a ranking in society. For example in the early 1980s if you wanted to see who the city boy was, you could most probably recognize him carrying a big stereo on his shoulders with the volume full blast. You could hear miles away that a boy from the city has come. Unfortunately all those that did not have a radio or the ones who did not want to hear his city music had to suffer the loud volume in silence. All he cared about was upholding status and he did not mind whether all of the other villagers wanted to listen to his loud stereo.

That era has come back now with the phones taking the place of the stereo. But now it’s not about status because just about all of us have phones. There is nothing amazing about a phone, even my 10-year-old niece has one. My question is why should I listen to a Jay Z track talking about getting naked in a public space from another phone. Even if you are playing a gospel song from one of our local gospel artists, it doesn’t give you rope to play it aloud.

Don’t you think it’s a little 1980s for a person to put his /her phone on full volume inside a kombi which happens to be a public space?

Please people do not drag us back to that era. A public space is my space so don’t you violate it by playing whoever you listen to these days; instead, use your headphones! Why should I suffer your style of music in a public space? If we are going to usher this country in a new era where we don’t do things for self satisfaction, where we consider how our actions are going to affect the person sitting next to you, we need to show some Respect. This nation is ready for change and for moving foward. It’s a shame . . .  we have not only stood aside and watched abuse from our leaders, but we have in fact become like them. We have the ‘whatever I want, I get,’ mentality regardless of the next person.

The worst situation that I came across is a little girl who decided to impose her love for Shakira music on me while on the other hand the kombi driver was on some local station. I had to do something. I was not going to let silence be a part of me. I took matters into my own hands and I think that’s what we need in our country. I was not going to be the typical 1980s villagers who did not have the guts to tell Mr. City Boy that, “hey man, we understand you are from town and you are the elite one, but we don’t want to listen to your radio and your songs.”  I said to her please take your volume down or use earphones that’s why your radiophone comes with them.

What am I saying people? I am saying let us consider how what we are doing is affecting the next person. Maybe its still about status. Maybe people still want to showcase that they have a better phone that plays a certain number of songs at a certain volume. Maybe we are still as rank and status obsessed as ever. But if you are sitting next to me and you play your phone aloud I will ask you not to. I will ask you to use you your earphones.

That’s their correct purpose anyway.

I am sure at some point, just like me, you have been wondering if there is a women’s movement in Zimbabwe. Don’t you worry. I went to this discussion and there was a lot said about the women’s movement. Yes it does exist and it is fully functional. There is going to be a DVD that shows how the women’s movement began before independence and how it continued after independence and the issues it looked at. For example, after independence women fought against Operation Chinyavada. In 1983 women were not meant to be out doors after a certain time or they would be arrested and picked up as prostitutes. If they did not have their IDs they were just arrested. So women came together and said they wanted equal freedom to roam just as men. After that about 25 women organizations were formed addressing issues on gender, gender violence and many other issues pertinent to women. At first there was confusion between children’s issues and woman’s issues, women were placed together with children and were viewed as minors. Again women came together and said “No” we are not children. The women’s movement usually arises in response to serious dissatisfaction on the current course of public policies. If women are not happy about a certain issue they can come together and rally for that particular issue. They could be five women or more on the streets rallying and they constitute a women’s movement. In most cases if these women’s movements challenge and address issues in the government, then the movement is likely to face resistance, as it challenges the status quo. So if you have question on whether the women’s movement is effective, or what the future of the women’s movement in Zimbabwe is, you must look out for the video that is currently in the making. Hopefully all these questions will be answered and more women will be encouraged to take part in the movement and get their views heard.

I was at an entrepreneurship course and I learnt something that I think can be applied in all aspects of life, be it in business, your everyday relations or the way you want to go about in life. It is so bad to let life just float away without putting value in it. My sister always says put value in it. For example when you sing – how much is each note worth? If you are going to speak to people how much are they going to draw from you? Today I want to add value to you by giving you a few pointers that I got from my two-day workshop.

If you want to be a good negotiator you must know how to say No. Yes you can say No for a lot of positive reasons. Saying No as a negotiator opens a door for more negotiations, it helps you to know more about your counterpart and it helps you to modify your position accordingly. So Yes I am going to show you ways how you can say No positively!

You can say

1.    Not here
2.    Not you
3.    Not me
4.    Not now
5.    Not that much
6.    Not that little
7.    Not again
8.    Not that
9.    Not ever

These positive No’s’ give you time in any place that you are in to take time and weigh your options. You can quickly say yes and find out that you have devalued yourself or perhaps you have over valued yourself. When that happens you either lose out on a potentially good business deal or you might be viewed as that person always saying yes and wanting to be everybody’s friend.

Its okay to say No just say it in a more tactful way and you will be amazed how many positive days you will have.

There are not so many women besides Mbuya Nhenda and a few women mentioned in our history. Allow me to introduce you toVenia Magaya. This woman should not only   be put in history books but she should be given hero status in the community and the country at large. She led to the reformation of our inheritance laws that stipulated that only a male heir is entitled to his fathers property even if there is an eldest child who is a girl.

Based on our culture, the section 23 of the inheritance law says a girl child cannot inherit her father’s estate because she is a woman. Only in the absence of a male child can she be an heiress. However this section was amended after Venia lost a case against her younger brother who later sold the house thereby leaving her destitute.

Venia’s father died in 1999 and was a polygamous man with two wives of whom Venia was the eldest from the first wife and her brother the eldest from the second wife. Venia was recognized as the heiress in the community court by virtue of being the first child but the provisional court refused her the right to have her father’s estate. Yes that’s right it became a human rights issue because it was her right to be the heir.

And as such I would encourage people yet again to make sure during the constitution making process that we get to make sure that there is a clause that will say that no customary law is above a person’s human rights. This heroine died penniless and homeless. Had it not been for her to push the matter forward to the Supreme Court such loopholes in our governance structure could not have been realized and thus the inheritance law was amended from saying that only the male child is allowed to inherit.

This however is not the end of the road because section 23 still exits and is still in play today. For us to make sure it is not put into practice and better still, it does not exist, we need to make sure to include that in the constitution. What made Venia lose the case before the Supreme Court is that it looked at what the supreme law of the land says about her situation? The constitution being the supreme law did not back her up at that time because it did not have a clause that says nothing takes precedence over any human rights.

Thank you Venia for at least being instrumental to some change in women’s lives. It is up to the living woman, man and every father to make sure their daughters are not discriminated against upon their death. And I urge all to seriously consider writing up wills to ensure the future of their children.

To Venia, I salute.

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.