Zimbabwe Youth Festival artistic director, Tenford Chitanana, has launched his documentary titled, “Toindepi: Reflections of a Discarded Generation”. The documentary which details the lives of youths in Zimbabwe’s Hatcliffe area which was greatly affected by Operation Murambatsvina. Speaking at the launch at a Food For Thought session at the US Embassy Public Affairs Section Chitanana said, “The future is not inherited but I feel it is borrowed. Its unfortunate young people have no space to walk into the future”. These words conceded with the various views shared by youths present who felt they were being marginalized and abused in some instances.

The film goes through the lives of three youths who face various challenges. From being an unemployed breadwinner, a young mother, and dropping out of school but despite the challenges they face in their community these youths have dreams they wish to achieve one day. Moreblessing, who chronicles his life mostly in the film, dreams of being a politician and wishes to run as a Councilor for his ward in the next elections.

They work hard and they dream big but the system has failed to provide at least just one of their major needs which is education. There is only one formal high school in the community, which cannot meet the needs of all the youths in the area. Thus the youths are forced to attend ‘make shift schools’ which at the end of the day mean nothing since they are not recognized by the education ministry and prospective employers. The young mother sees her future brighter if only she can be afforded decent education in her community through the building of a formal school for all. Not only for herself but also for the generations to come.

Chitanana hopes that his film will inspire the youths of Zimbabwe to envision their tomorrow despite today’s challenges and struggles. Thus he poses the question Toindepi (Where do we go) and hopes from this documentary and other works that the youths will be enabled to come together and map a way forward to work together for the future.

According to a Reuters news agency report over the weekend, a 50-something year-old man committed suicide by burning himself outside the Italian parliament. He was protesting against his joblessness, and according to the report, this was one of many suicides related to unemployment as Italians reel under harsh government austerity measures.

It got me thinking about the tough conditions Zimbabweans have endured since good governance and sound management of the economy went out of fashion. It got me thinking about the 80-plus percent unemployment in the country and just how far the jobless have tolerated their circumstances, just what figures we would be counting of self-immolation outside parliament. It does cast a very bad light on the economic injustices that have been endured here, the indignity of fathers failing to provide for their families. Indeed, troubled mothers have been heard saying such horrible things as, “if I could swallow back these kids, I would.”

That’s how bad economic injustice can be, yet the worst that emerges from these miserable circumstances is insistence by the same politicians who sow these seeds of abject misery that they deserve the people’s vote come elections.  From petty crime to crossing the crocodile infested Limpopo to larger-than-life government corruption, all this in different ways has gave its own forms of death and its time we asked ourselves tough questions as we prepare for a bruising time ahead of elections about where are headed and who we want to preside over our economic destiny.

Already, we know that some humanitarian agencies have attracted Zanu PF’s ire for claiming some people have died over the years because of starvation. How do we know some didn’t kill themselves because they couldn’t take it anymore? The story of that Italian is very telling. Yet some will say different societies have different value systems that determine how they deal with these such things suicide, yet the human condition essentially remains steeped in the basic pursuit of happiness.

And politicians have made it their sworn mission to deny people this right to happiness.

One third of the children in America are facing diabetes
one in four children in UK are facing obesity
children in Sweden had a 20%  increase of ‘computer-game-addiction’ this summer holiday
children in Syria are being bombed and slaughtered every day
one third of the children in Zimbabwe are orphans

Children being born into our world today are facing an abandonment of global proportions
by parents, communities, governments

love and family and  support
lost to disease and death
or replaced by goodies, and bad food and computers

yesterday – driving through town, I opened my window
to the street kids
who stand smiling – eyes at window level – hands out
and tell me their names
when their mother died

What have these young eyes seen?
now left to survive on the streets alongside the litter and detritus of our urban waste

these are the children of the future – all of them
and we are failing them . . .

Just thinking about Marko’s blog on the national census, have you noticed the large, full colour adverts about the census in our newspapers? The latest advert suggests that if you cooperate with the census process your participation will help ensure the provision of water … something that we haven’t had a consistent supply of for the last several years. You’ve really just got to wonder at the lengths the Zimbabwe government will go to with their propaganda on the one hand, and their heads up their arses on the other. I mean, let’s face it, the mismanagement of the economy and a politics based in patronage and self enrichment have been central to the erosion of the standard of living of the average citizen in this country. A national census isn’t going to remedy this. Kicking out all the useless politicians will.

A young man pissed off with his joblessness packed his bags over the weekend to join the rest of his family in the now clichéd but still very painfully true great trek to Jo’burg. Another young graduate of the School of Mines found himself jobless after having tasted the sweet mining dollars for a few months somewhere in Gwanda. He is presently holed up with his old parents somewhere in rural Masvingo contemplating his next move. This young man already has a brother working in Mozambique, I suspect that’s where he is also headed. These two young men whose demographic is considered by some pundits as the largest voting bloc in the country is expected to vote in droves in the coming polls. As some parties cry out for the Diaspora vote, it is a rather harsh reality that these parties either choose to ignore or simply have no clue how to address the issue that some potential voters are actually leaving the country. Talk about life’s painful choices: stick around and fix this joblessness through the ballot and still have to contend with the present hunger pangs. Tough choices, hey, and the usual suspects will add, a tough call for patriotism.

I think we are really regressing as a nation sometimes, what’s with men lobbying for women to be indoors by six o’clock? We cannot go back to the medieval era when women like children were meant to be seen only and not heard. Giving women a curfew is meant to alleviate prostitution they say. Bakers Inn will cease to bake bread the day the bread does not have consumers. The same way prostitution will end when men stop consuming the female product. If this is passed as a law it is going to be disastrous for women like me whose industry strives at night. I am a musician and performer who will be jobless. What other option of work will I have for a job? If the majority of women whom I know work long hours in offices have to be home by six and have no husbands or any other help to make ends meet, how will they survive? Can you imagine the bulk of women jobless wanting to put food on the table for their children and other persons under their care? Women often have more people to take care of than men do, imagine the pressure that this woman will have? If she is not going to be a commercial sex worker she is going to prostitute to her husband, boyfriend, lover or any other man in her life in the comfort of her house and not on the street corner. Prostitution by my definition is having sex in exchange for money or up keep. Putting a curfew on women will not stop prostitution. Instead it will make it rise. Prostitution is not going to be alleviated by this but is going to come to our homes as our mothers, sisters and all the female relations will sleep with men in their lives just to make him happy in hope he will leave a dollar for bread. Need I remind men out there that prostitution knows no time of the day? There are other ways prostitution can be alleviated. I don’t see how imposing a curfew on women will help.