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Statement
on Youth Summit
Zimbabwe Youth Network (ZIYON)
April 21, 2009
We ZIYON, a
network of youth organisations cast over and operating across the
country, echoing the sentiments and voices of young people and of
youth organisations, serve to express our concern and position in
response to the 08th of April Youth Summit held at local hotel.
Our concern is on the planning, procedure and outcome of the summit
which to us, undermined the basic essence of a productively people
driven democratic society. The summit comes at the daybreak of the
GNU, which beyond resolving a political crisis has vowed to facilitate
the democratization of the country's systems of governance.
Despite its long anticipated collusion as a platform to exchange
knowledge and facts on the experiences of the young people in the
country; a platform to explore solutions to material and human concerns
of the youth, the summit became a spectacle of how much the youth
are divided and disfranchised as a sector. Incongruously the summit
fell short of the hope and promise of the new dispensation. Coming
from a history of systematic exclusion and stereotyping of the youth
as apathetic and rowdy which has stained perspectives on youth and
paralysed youth development, we express our concern with a sense
of responsibility while simultaneously standing out to our principle
duty of speaking out forthrightly.
At the level
of planning, the summit failed to create a participatory platform
where an effective and realistic representation of young people
would be assured. By limiting young people to a Zanu PF/MDC and
civic organization youth classification criteria was to undermine
the heterogeneous factor of the youth, which created a systematic
exclusion of many youth interest groups who have over the years
been marginalised and excluded from national platforms where decisions
that affect them are made. Secondly the architects of the summit
did not lay out a properly and clearly stated procedure of conduct
that would yield specific results. Instead the summit's agenda
has remained unclear to us. Lastly, the outcome of the summit has
remained hard to pin down. Failure to contain violence and restrain
the impact of the intolerance and a clearly visible political divide
overshadowed the constructive picture of national unity.
As ZIYON we
here by echo the sentiments of the youth we work with-and- for,
in expressing our dismay at the violent innuendos and failure of
the 8th of April summit.
In our perspective
expectations, the summit could have been an opportunity for the
ministry to;
- Listen to
the concerns of young people, which did not happen, instead it
became a platform for politicians and leaders to show off their
affluence and for young people to listen and admire.
- Usher a detailed
and specific program for youth and the youth sector in the next
100 days - this was not done, there were contrasting references
by senior government officials to the youth as leaders of tomorrow
and them being leaders today (testifying to the lack of a clear
government policy and agenda on youth). Where youth prospects
were mentioned, they were in by- passing references in overgeneralised
statements where young people were told they constitute 67% of
the national population and were challenged to start businesses,
told that they have the right to owing farms and good education,
but without a clear government drive to make all these possibilities
into real prospects.
- Outline
the implication of Article 15 of the GPA
on youth training and National Service. The article has created
a somewhat frustration or sense of suspicion among the youth who
already are resentful and unsupportive of the existing National
Youth Service programme.
- Present
an audit on the form and function of the Zimbabwe Youth Council
Act, Zimbabwe Youth Council and the Zimbabwe National Youth Policy
as youth development superstructures and frameworks that have
been in existence since 13 years ago. This could have opened leeway
for constructive and open contribution by young people, produced
a platform for feedback (which is currently not in effective existence)
and created an outlook for review and reformulation. From the
summit it appears these remain contentious issues and an illustration
of the authorities' unwillingness to make a meaningful commitment
to its youth consequently undermining youth development.
- Construct
trust; solicit youth buy in and orient them on the GNU. There
was a clear political divide among the leadership, demonstrating
to the youth how fragile the political agreement is as a result,
creating a sense of doubt in the government's possibility
to deliver and capacity to ebb the wounds of yesteryear's
confrontation.
- Create a
joint platform for the government to work with young people from
diverse formations without suspicion.
The events
of the 8 April summit as contained in the manipulative planning
process that excluded many voices and issues on the agenda, an agenda
shrouded by unclear objectives, a process hijacked by political
interests, rendering of meeting a pointless oratorical funfair and
outcomes that were overshadowed by mismanagement and uncontained
violence, represent, to us, a failure to steer up a new dispensation
for the youth fraternity. The youth have remained militarised over
camps with a political consciousness below par.
By and large,
the summit goes down history being remembered by the date, venue
and violent clashes of youth from different political thoughts,
its outcome lay bare the urgency of the need for youth rehabilitation
and a serious move into issues of national healing which is becoming
past due. The delay in a clear plan for justice (punitive, retributive
or restorative) threatens the unity of young people in the GNU and
has strengthened suspicion of impunity at the expense of victims
and the nation at large. It is also reflective of the issues of
truth, justice and reconciliation's sensitivity and urgent
need yet in the summit it was not treated with the dedication it
requires. The holdup in a functional youth participation and development
framework shall, as demonstrated in the summit, continuously deter
youth from meaningful contribution to issues of national concern
worsening the youth situation in the process.
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