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Weekly activity update
National Youth Development Trust
October 05, 2011

Bulawayo

Youth peace convention: More than 200 youths met at the Zimbabwe Academy of Music to deliberate on the theme "Youths building lasting peace in Zimbabwe." Day one of the convention had a variety of presentations that served to prepare the youths for active participation on the second day. Minister Moses Mzila Ndlovu represented the organ on national healing and reconciliation in giving an appraisal of the national healing process in Zimbabwe. He highlighted that the major challenge facing the organ was that there was no legal framework for its operation.

Numerous facts pointed out by the minister indicated that the organ was disjointed and nothing is being done with regards to national healing in Zimbabwe. Dumisani Nkomo also gave an appraisal of the national healing process in Zimbabwe from a civic society perspective. He highlighted that the organ is powerless as long as it does not have an act of parliament supporting its operations and that is why a minister in the organ can be arrested for addressing a meeting on national healing. He said that even the ministers are unclear of what they are supposed to do therefore as far as National healing is concerned the country is yet to start.

Effie Ncube led the discussion on the South African experience of the Truth and reconciliation commission, drawing lessons for Zimbabwe. He however emphasized that there are a number of factors that prevailed in South Africa but are absent in Zimbabwe that made it possible for the TRC to be a success. He said that South Africa had an icon for a president, a former president that was willing to assist in the new government and the TRC was quasi-judiciary.

Another discussion was on the role of the security sector in building lasting peace in Zimbabwe. Liberman Bhebhe made a presentation that traced the history of the security sector becoming actively involved in Zimbabwean politics. It was clear from the discussions that there was need for Security sector reform and young people suggested ways of reforming the sector.

A presentation from Thabani Nyoni focused on the role of youths in peace building. He challenged young people to be action-based change makers in their approach to critical issues such as peace building. He said that they should be the ones rejecting any violence or attempts to bribe them to engage in violence.

A play entitled "1983, the years before and after" laid the foundation on the need for national healing in Zimbabwe. It explored issues around the Gukurahundi massacres that took place in Matabeleland immediately after independence. The play emphasized the need to talk about the brutalities that took place so that there can be true unity in Zimbabwe.

The second Day of the convention started with a politically charged panel of youth representatives from Zanu PF, MDC-T, ZAPU and MDC. These were focusing on the role of political parties in building lasting peace in Zimbabwe.

However the greater part of day two was about group discussions and plenary sessions with the participants. The participants were divided into eight groups to discuss four different topics, that is, the timing of the healing process, the approach to the process, leadership as well as other stakeholders to be involved in the process. Feedback from these group discussions informed the peace policy document that NYDT is compiling and also laid a roadmap as to how young people in Matabeleland want the national healing process to be done.

Ntabazinduna

Youth meeting: At least 60 young people met to discuss youth participation in elections. It was established at the meeting that there is limited flow of information in the area as young people requested NYDT to assist them with information material. The young people highlighted that there are a lot of training centers in Ntabazinduna but there was no site for them to register as voters. They cited this as a challenge because they need to travel to Bulawayo if they want to register to vote. Youths in the area also requested for voter education programmes from organisations such as NYDT as they had little information on how to register and what is required. The organization's newsletter, Youth expressions and fliers on elections distributed at the meeting proved to be handy. The meeting was however also attended by adults who said they needed to be sure that their children were not being recruited into programmes they do not want to be part of without knowing it as they have seen happen in the past.

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