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Recognize, celebrate our innovations: Bulawayo youth
US Embassy
June 20, 2011

The failure to recognize, support and celebrate innovations by Zimbabweans is stifling efforts aimed at empowering the youth in the country, youth leaders said on Thursday. The youth dialogue session, which coincided with the Day of the African Child, was held in Bulawayo and discussed "youth empowerment: looking beyond political rhetoric." It was co-sponsored by the Zimbabwe Independent newspaper and the United States Embassy.

"There is an overwhelming need to invest in research and innovation . . . any community or country that seeks to grow needs to explore, we need to tap into what our young people are doing like the student at a local university who developed a blood pressure machine, but there is no one who has come forward to support the initiative," said Belinda Gumbo of the Habakkuk Trust, a local non-governmental organization working on peace building and community empowerment.

Presenters at the dialogue session cited initiatives by the National University of Science and Technology (NUST) based in Bulawayo. NUST established a Technopark to develop innovations relevant to business. As a result, a number of new innovations, such as the Blood Pressure machine, were developed but they have not received support from government or the private sector.

"We live in a society that would rather give $300,000 to a young man for staying in a house for three months than give money to inventors. We need to redefine the way we see our society and the way we see things," said Precious Simba. Simba participated in the Fortune 500 Global Women's Mentorship Program in the United States with fellow Zimbabwean, Thembekile Sachikonye.

"Innovation usually come from people like you and me, who are researching; people who do not live in a box; people who are not tied to culture and doing things in the same way. We need to bring out those ideas, celebrate them and make them relevant to business," said Simba, the retail operations manager at Spar Supermarket.

Energy Maburutse of the Cultural Information Trust told delegates that ignorance about the conditions of the disabled hinder contribution by this sector, which constitutes 10 percent of the country's population.

"Let me give you another example, one that is close to my heart," said the wheel chair bound Maburutse, who was born with brittle bone syndrome. "When I was born, many members of my parents' and grandparents' generation took one look at me and assumed that my mother must have been cursed, that I was disabled because of witchcraft. They never studied science and knew nothing about genetics, so they could not move beyond what they had been taught," he noted.

The dialogue session was the second facilitated by the Zimbabwe Independent; the first session was held in Harare on May 26th. Other presenters were Edwell Hove, a student activist at NUST, and Nombulelo Madonko of Youth for Today and Tomorrow.

Dalumuzi Mhlanga, an NGO activist with Lead Us Today, echoed the sentiments of his colleagues in calling for a change in the systems and values that define society, rather than only focusing on changing personalities.

"The problem is that we are faced with systems such that who is at the top, and you are not getting results," said Mhlanga challenging fellow youths to look at personalities as part of, but not the only source of, the problem. "We need to be looking at the system and asking ourselves what we should be doing to change it," said Mhlanga who is currently pursuing further studies at Harvard University in the United States.

"Relationships should also change," added Sharon Hudson-Dean, Counselor for Public Affairs at the U.S. Embassy in closing remarks. "I would encourage that and I also hope that within that perspective we change Zimbabwe-U.S. relationships."

The youth dialogue session in Bulawayo is third such event supported by the United States Embassy. It was part of the United States' ongoing engagement with young Africans that began in August 2010 with President Obama's Forum with Young African Leaders in Washington, D.C.

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