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Activity update - 28 August 2012
National Youth Development Trust
August 29, 2012

Beitbridge

District Peace Training Workshop: Youths in Beitbridge have lamented the treatment they get at the hands of local police who, they say, take abuse their power. They stated that in some cases people have been apprehended while walking around the Beitbridge CBD after failing to produce passports. This happens regardless of the fact that they will not even be at the border or have any intentions to cross over to South Africa. The youths therefore highlighted police brutality as one of the threats to peace in Beitbridge district. They also indicated that their participation in national processes is very minimal as they are afraid of the violent nature of politics in Zimbabwe. Instead they said they are more concerned with entrepreneurship because they live in a 24-hour border town.

Although the participants initially displayed ignorance about national politics, a role play on the role of youths in electoral processes showed that they were fully aware of political developments but they were sceptical about discussing them. Key topics covered during the training workshop included a contextual analysis of the socio-economic status of Beitbridge youths; Understanding different levels of conflict, its cycle and how to respond to it; Peace building frameworks; Conflict mapping in the Zimbabwean context; Human rights monitoring and documentation; Gender mainstreaming and Leadership. Participants were drawn from Beitbridge town, Tongwe and Siyoka villages.

Nkayi

Sports for Peace Festival: More than four hundred youths converged at Dakamela Primary school in Nkayi for a Sport for Peace Festival organised by the National Youth Development Trust. The event brought together a total of twelve soccer teams and two netball teams from four different wards in Nkayi. Despite the fact that these young people came from different political backgrounds, they peacefully took part in the sporting games and were able to interact with each other as young people. Before the games, the organisation took the opportunity to deliberate with these young people on how best they can uphold peace within their community, while accepting that they have different political and social backgrounds. The discussion included both players and supporters and saw the youths agree to the fact that they had a bigger role to play in upholding peace in their community. Also present at the festival were parents and community leadership who commended the organisation's efforts of bringing youths together and fostering a culture of peace, diversity and coexistence.

Gwanda

Political Party Forum: Representatives from the youth wings of MDC-T, MDC, ZAPU and ZANU PF met at a neutral platform provided by the NYDT to share ideas on how best their respective parties can uphold peace in their communities. The youth leaders agreed that there was need to cultivate a culture of tolerance and regular interaction amongst themselves.

Despite the fact that the respective leaders defended their party ideology, the youths accepted the fact that there were several key issues that affected all of them as young people from Gwanda regardless of what political party they come from. For instance, lack of education opportunities as evidenced by the low number of schools in their district and high unemployment were highlighted as mutual problems which they all agreed were a result of marginalisation. They also lamented the fact that although there are a number of mines in Gwanda district, very few local youths are employed there. Instead the people managing the mines were said to be importing labour from other areas leaving young people from Gwanda disadvantaged economically. The young people said such issues were also a cause of conflict in their area and were contributing to poor youth participation in national processes.

After much deliberation, the youth wings agreed that as leaders they need to have visions that go beyond their political parties but focuses on addressing the challenges faced by their young counterparts. They also agreed that engaging in violence would only make their situation worse and agreed to respect each other even as youths from different political parties.

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