Baseline Survey/Study Consultancy: Zimbabwe Red Cross Society
Deadline: 6 April 2012

Project: FED/2010/244-238:CHIVI Water, Sanitation And Hygiene Project (CHIWASH)

The International Federation of the Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (Federation) has received funding from the European Commission (EC) and British and Finnish Red Cross Societies for the implementation of a Water, Sanitation and Hygiene Project in Chivi District, Masvingo Province. The funding from the EC comes from the 10th EDF under the ACP-EU Water Facility 3rd Call For Proposals. The project is funded for four years and aims to improve access to safe water and sanitation and promote good hygiene behavior, which will contribute to improved health and quality of life for 100,000 people. Zimbabwe Red Cross Society (ZRCS), a leading Humanitarian organization in Zimbabwe, is the national/local implementing partner to the Federation in this project.

The Federation is seeking the services of a competent and qualified consultant to undertake a baseline survey/study in Chivi District targeting wards 16-32.

Objectives of the Baseline Study
The baseline results and findings will be a key tool that will influence the planning and targeting of community members with the planned interventions. The baseline study should therefore help in defining the current situation primarily related to access and use including Knowledge, Practices And Attitudes (KAP) linked to Water, Sanitation and Hygiene. Further, the results obtained should facilitate monitoring and evaluation of project objectives and key results.

Profile of consultant

The consultant should provide the following experiences and skills:
- An expert with university education and extensive relevant professional experience of at least five years in the water and sanitation sector in Zimbabwe
- Experience in WatSan evaluations/surveys and the required quantitative and qualitative survey methodologies
- Understanding of current trends and challenges in Water and Sanitation at regional/national/district levels in Zimbabwe
- Ability to draft concise reports and communicate the survey results clearly
- Should have carried out a least two baseline surveys/and or evaluations of similar projects in the last 3-5years

The baseline study is scheduled for the second week of April 2012

Detailed Terms of Reference with instructions to prospective consultants can be requested by email from: cecil.maposa [at] ifrc [dot] org

The Federation will not take responsibility for non-delivery of the Terms of Reference sent by email.

Adrienne Rich, a poet of towering reputation and towering rage, whose work — distinguished by an unswerving progressive vision and a dazzling, empathic ferocity — brought the oppression of women and lesbians to the forefront of poetic discourse and kept it there for nearly a half-century, died on Tuesday at her home in Santa Cruz, Calif. She was 82.

More from the New York Times

Tender Invitation For Youth Sector Analysis
Deadline: 10 April 2012 (4pm)

The Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency (SIDA) invites tenders for an analysis of the Youth Sector in Zimbabwe (young men and young women).  The main goal of the assignment is to carry out a gender sensitive, high quality analysis of the youth sector in Zimbabwe.  The assignment will consist of a variety of data collection techniques resulting in the compilation of both qualitative and quantitative data (sex disaggregated).  The consultant (s) is/are expected to involve young women and men, representatives from Civil Society, Government Officials, Donor Representatives, Multilateral Agencies among others through research, direct interviews and focus group discussions. The consultant(s) will be required to assess what Sida, other funders, Government, Civil Society and the Private Sector, are currently doing in the sector.

The tender should consist of a technical proposal, which shall include:

- Understanding of the consultancy (max. 10 pages):
- Description of the relevant context
- Proposed approach and methodology to complete the task
- An outline of the instruments to be used for gathering data
- The matrixes and tables to be used
- Targeted stakeholders
- Proposed time frame for completion of the task
- Proposed budget (including fees per day and itemised reimbursable)

The assignment will commence in April 2012 and should be completed no later than 24 May 2012.

The tenders should adhere to the tender documentation, which is all available at www.swedenabroad.com/harare

Growing up our elders might have had a worse of life than us in terms of availability of resources to use within the family. They used to sleep in a ‘common room’ as in the boys and girls sleeping together in a room not necessarily a bedroom but it could be in the kitchen or the lounge. Today families have a boy’s room and a girl’s room with some being privileged enough to have a bedroom for each child in the family. Our elders ate well and still do, all the wild fruits and vegetables that most of us in the younger generation have never tasted. And thus they have lived longer, and some are still counting their years.

Are we necessarily better off than our elders? Us youngsters love the fast life, the fast foods and we tend to cut our lives short and die before we can even watch our own children grow or even hold at least one grandchild. In my, I feel we are a whole lot more miserable despite having all this and that. We face each day with uncertainty, we just keep our fingers crossed for a better tomorrow. Our elders smile more often than we do. We walk in the streets with lots of burden on our shoulders from failed relationships to unemployment to lack of resources to trying to make a decent living on our own. Our elders seem to be cheerful and take each day as it comes despite some of them being the only surviving guardians of their grandchildren.

I was taken through this comparison journey at a Food For Thought Session at the US Embassy Public Affairs Section on Tuesday in commemoration of women’s month. The presentation was held under the theme, ‘When I was young’ / ‘Wisdom from grannies diaries’ and was facilitated by DefZee. The panel consisted of two elderly women. Looking at the elderly women who were on the panel I could see the generation gap but at the same time I felt like we are the ones losing out. One of the elderly woman actually said we called them ‘PO Box’ while we call ourselves ‘.com’- to illustrate that they are old and we are the new thing. But sadly while we are the new things with .com technology we tend to miss out on a lot of important things in life.

Our elders proposed and dated in a different manner than we do today. They wrote letters and each time they had to see their loved ones they had to have a third person present at their meeting. They never went out on dates. Instead they went to a ‘tete’ to approve of the relationship and to counsel them. Their advice to the young ones was that it would be of benefit to us if we stick to some of the morals and values they had in their relationships. For example no sex before marriage and being faithful to our partners. In conclusion, they encouraged the youth to pray to God because He gives hope and strength in the midst of all adversity.

The news from Senegal – elections were held against the incumbent. He lost. And he has left office.

Try as he might to stay, the people want him gone, and he is gone.

He changed the Constitution to say no third term, and then stood for a third term. Which he was legally entitled to. His first term in office, when he changed the Constitution, did not count against the two term limit. So said his court. So he was quite correct, he could stand.

Understand; correct is a legal term. It means legal or illegal under the law. Things are correct or incorrect, according to what is written in the statutes. Right and wrong though, are moral terms. Some things are right, and some things are wrong. We know these things if we look inside ourselves. Things like murder, theft, adultery. They are wrong. We ‘know’ that. They are also against the law, which makes them incorrect, but we know they are wrong.

So, the sitting President of Senegal ran for election, which he was correct to do. However, he was wrong. And the people told him that. They had the ability, and they had the power, to say “no”. And they did. And he left. That is democracy.

Next door, in Mali, there is a coup. The army supplanted the elected government, in order to give themselves the power and resources to fight the Tuareg rebels (fellow Malians). However, it seems from reports that while the army was looting in Bamako, the capital, the rebels took some towns in the north! So you have to wonder, why did they really stage a coup? This army captain and his buddies. While they do not have the strength to fight the Tuareg, they also do not have the brains to keep themselves from stealing.

Either way it seems democracy is the best answer. While it certainly is not perfect, it certainly has it’s short-comings and faults, democracy is the best course. Even if it is only ‘least worst’. Even if the only reason is you cannot blame yourself for what went wrong. Under democracy you make the decisions, you make them work, and you live with the consequences. Under democracy, you cannot blame or find scapegoats amongst the political elite, the captains of industry, the securocrats, foreign capital, etc. It is you. You run your country.

Once again, the sun has moved north across the equator
painting rainbows on the thatch through the crystal in the A-frame

it is the coming of winter,
the nights begin to carry the first memories of the cold dry season
but still it rains

2012 …

the wobble in our planetary axis
returns us to the same place we visited a 26 thousand year ago
the completion of some galactic cycle

and our solar system sails through the equator of our galaxy
in the slow timeless turning of the universe.

leaving us
to give meaning to the movement
doom or salvation?
or just the speeding up of everything that we know?

- because movement there is!

the global mind connects across the planet
through twitter and blog and skype

What is it we are thinking?
what are we seeing as the potential of this extraordinary experiment?
as we increase in our numbers and expectations
and economic planning
-  busy borrowing from the future

have we lost connection to the place we began
the home which has supported our lives?

travelling blind into this new turn of the cycle
as if severed from the fire of our being

but cracks appear in the edifices of our belief systems
and the knowing-unthinking darkness born of our killing and greed

threads of survival?
a sense of holding?
a creative connection emerging alongside this chaotic crumbling?

New life continues to be born this morning
as if into an emerald
glowing with the luster of yesterday’s rain
flowers like fractals of rainbows
sung into being