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Crisis meets the people
Crisis in Zimbabwe Coalition
October 29, 2010

Crisis in Zimbabwe Coalition held a community meeting in Bindura at the Foothills Farms on the 21st of October 2010 aimed at evaluating the constitution outreach meetings held by COPAC and soliciting their views on the process. Speakers at the meeting were Crisis Advocacy Officer Memory Kadau and Glanis Changachirere from the Institute of Young Women Development.

Participants at the meeting noted that poor attendances characterize the outreach meetings due to poor publicity by Copac since some of the people heard about the meetings from their employers. Participants also noted that the meetings were highly polarized and politicized as evidenced by workers sitting on one side and their employers on the other. Participants were of the view that Copac should have opted to hold door to door consultations instead of communal gatherings as this would have reduced the number of incidents of violence.

Community Theatre Forum Meetings

The Coalition held 2 community theatres forums at Budiriro 2 shopping Centre and Zengeza 2 Shopping Centre on Friday 22nd and Saturday 23rd of October respectively. The meetings which targeted suburbs where Copac is expected to re-do meetings that were cancelled due to violence, provided a platform to encourage people to take part in the process and desist from acts of violence. Budiriro residents noted that hooligans would not be tolerated and that Police should increase the number of officers deployed to outreach meetings.

The following issues were raised at the meetings:

• Copac teams should take down all contributions regardless of who has given then and should not ignore relevant points by marginalized groups
• There should be no holding of preparatory meetings before the holding of consultative meetings as some members of society may feel intimaidated.
• All officers of the law should identify themselves before the start of the meeting and should be in uniforms
• Copac should improve on publicity
  Security forces should not be politically biased
• Door to door consultations were preferred as opposed as opposed to public hearings where people do not freely express themselves

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