Kubatana, a Zimbabwean non-profit organisation committed to democratising access to information, was awarded a Knight News Challenge grant in May 2008 for its Freedom Fone software development project. The Freedom Fone project aspires to help civic organisations extend their information in an audio format to mobile phone users.

In Zimbabwe the mass media is monopolised by an entrenched and unpopular government. There are no licensed radio or television stations outside the direct control of the government. There are no community radio stations. There are no independent daily newspapers. Voice over Internet (VoIP) has not been legalised and wireless networking is tightly regulated. Working in this environment Kubatana realised the importance of leveraging the growing access to mobile telephony by people across income and interest groups. Frustrated by the limitations of SMS, Kubatana investigated the potential for manipulating call-in voice menus to convey frequently updated rather than static information. The primary objective was to add to the information outreach capacity of organisations in the non-profit sector by providing them with easy to install and use software to deliver their information, in languages of their choice, to phone users in the general public. Since interactive voice menu (IVR) systems incorporate voice mail or ‘leave-a-message’ functionality Kubatana also recognised the potential for developing rich two-way communications with communities and for facilitating citizen journalism.

With the Knight News Challenge award, we have been able to commission the redevelopment of our platform to incorporate lessons learnt to-date and the latest advancements in open source telephony development.

Since software development is an involved process, Kubatana was keen to work with an interim solution to facilitate experimentation with IVR in Zimbabwe whilst full-scale development progressed. We investigated commercial IVR providers in South Africa and were delighted to find a responsive company in Pretoria: Molo Innovation. Charl Barnard, a director in the company, was very interested in the innovative ideas we had for extending the use of IVR into the non-profit and development sectors. Importantly, he was prepared to assist us at heavily subsidised rates with quickly re-gigging an existing Asterisk-based product for our interim use.

The value of Molo’s support cannot be measured in dollar terms – it goes well beyond that. Our expedited productivity gave birth to an innovation called ‘Inzwa’ which means ‘to listen’ in the vernacular. For the first time in many years in Zimbabwe, the general public were able to call-in, at their convenience, and access non-state controlled audio information via their phones.

Our Inzwa experience enabled us to quickly and constructively feed into the planning and development of the Freedom Fone platform as well as test the waters in Zimbabwe and start to assess local interest in phoning in for information. It gave us hands on experience and the ability to speak with greater conviction about the potential of Freedom Fone as a useful product; an appreciation of the skills and resources needed to run an information on demand audio service and allowed us to share a real-life deployment with others interested in doing something similar.

And Zimbabwe is just the start! A deployment partner, Farm Radio International, has been keen for some time to experiment with IVR as a support for and extension of their community radio programming for small-scale poultry farmers. They installed our interim version for training and pilot purposes in Tanzania and Ghana in November 2009.

Commercial support to non-profit initiatives can have far-reaching and rewarding results and we would encourage others to follow in Molo’s socially responsible footsteps.

Do yourself a favour and visit Poetry International to read some great poetry from around the world. The current  featured Zimbabwean poet is Freedom T.V. Nyamubaya. Editor Irene Staunton introduces her as “a rural development activist, farmer, dancer and writer who was born in Uzumba. Cutting short her secondary school education in 1975, she left to join the Zimbabwe National Liberation Army in Mozambique where she achieved the rank of Female Field Operation Commander, later being elected Secretary for Education in the first ZANU Women’s League conference in 1979.”

Here is one of Freedom T.V. Nyamubaya’s poems from 2009.

Coming and Going

In Zimbabwe rain is an event
Like the sighting of a new moon
In the fasting month of Ramadan
The butterflies display a short-lived beauty
Before they become the sparrow’s festive dish
Beautiful angels in a distant dream
Of babies in the reeds and life after death.

There are more prophets of doom
Than angels from Heaven
Most rivers are silted
With fertilisers and asbestos powder

From the higher-ranking scientific politicians
Whose power to stop development
Can be measured in kilogrammes of pain
No gatecrashers at Heroes Acre please!
You have to have been mafia to qualify

A Kubatana subscriber recently emailed us his Letter to Zimbabwe. Our mailing list is pretty big, but not That Big. But Mathias Makozhombwe makes an awful lot of sense. It makes me think of that quote that suggests that the people who should be running the country are driving taxis and cutting hair. Here’s Mathias on what he wants for Zimbabwe.

I feel the need to talk about Zimbabwe, and share my thoughts. We need to elevate our game and stop the rot that has plagued this beautiful nation. It’s a well-known fact that Zanu more than sold us short, so I won’t dwell much on that because you know the lot. The question my brothers and sisters is how do we move forward, break free from the shackles of poverty, violence, misrepresentation and institutional tribalism?

How do we break free, stay free and never return to this unbearable situation of perpetual abuse of power? How do we differentiate the real from the fake, cheap talk from real talk? I don’t have all the questions or answers but these are issues that we need to consider when signing up for any future situations. The word I hear a lot is change; sure enough that’s a start, but not good enough. We need SMART change, a set of objectives that are Specific, Measurable, Agreed, Realistic and Time Bound.

For clarity Zanu not only failed, they were a major catastrophe. Now as we stand up, speak up and unite for the sake of peace, it is important to note that there can be no peace without equality, and there can be no sustainable progress and stability without well-considered policies that have been debated at every level, with the Policy Makers and Implementers held accountable through effective regulation.

So when these political types in suits with stripes knock on our doors and ask for our votes, it’s our responsibility to demand accountability. For over 25 years the War Vets have held the nation to ransom. The nation owes the debt for their sacrifice, but when you cheat, steal and kill the very people you sought to liberate the debt owed to you becomes null and void.

My message to Mugabe, Chihuri and the gang, your days are numbered, you are way past your sell by date and judgment day is on the way. To Tsvangirai, Biti and the team, you have huge task ahead of you, and failure is not an option. You need to deliver, if or when you assume full power of Government. For now less whining and more action.

To my fellow Zimbabweans we are at a cross roads; the battle for freedom, equality and long term prosperity is only in it’s infancy. It is up to us whether we sink or swim, lose or win, die on our feet or live on our knees. I am not Dr King but I do have dreams. I am just an ordinary man who believes that one day peace and prosperity will return to Zimbabwe, and that all Zimbabweans will have equal opportunity and be judged not by the colour of their skin, tribal descent or sexual orientation, but by the nature and quality of their moral fibre.

A Kubatana subscriber is convening meetings with residents in Avondale in Harare to discuss local problems and how to solve them. Here’s a small excerpt from his report illustrating the lack of vigour and interest on the part of our City Council to rectify water leaks while, when we turn on our taps, nothing comes Out.

Stan was there, and reported back on the ‘leak’ (flood) coming out of the Reps Theatre property since the beginning of October 2009. This is not a Reps leak, it is the city side of the meter, and is city pipes. It is a large flow (considering a major water main runs up East Road under them), somewhat reminiscent of a small stream. The count to date – Reps have made 147 phone calls to the City to repair and stop our water loss. The Director of Works went out to see it in November. However, now, mid January, the water still flows, unimpeded and without the benefit of pipes! And without benefiting anyone in Harare.

I’ve just read that war veterans in Zimbabwe are demanding a 20% share in Zimbabwe’s wealth. I wonder why they don’t start with demanding a percentage of Robert Mugabe’s wealth. Why is there no investigation of this man’s wealth and opulent life style? Transparency International Zimbabwe . . .  Do Something

Many years ago in a little German town called Hamelin, the people had a terrible problem of rats. They were everywhere – in the streets, houses, beds and even baby cots. The mayor and his people were stumped. One day the Pied Piper came along and said he could deal with the rat problem, if the Mayor would pay a huge sum of money. The mayor agreed. So the Pied Piper played his pipes and all the rats gathered, followed him out of Hamelin and fell off a cliff. When it was time to cough up, the mayor balked. So the Pied Piper played another tune and this time, all the children followed him and never returned.

The story of the Pied Piper might just be folklore, but in a little town called Harare, in a country where the economy is dysfunctional and politicians make empty promises, people are generally preoccupied with daily survival and keeping body and soul together above all else. Crucial social services like garbage collection and disposal are neglected, sometimes to the detriment of the people concerned. As street corners pile up with garbage, a new menace has surfaced and its kind has an unparalleled reproductive ability.

They are everywhere, living and rummaging in the corners where we store our garbage, occupying private spaces and threatening to invade our homes as their numbers grow exponentially in direct response to the piling rubbish. Hundreds of them are being born each day threatening to colonize and congest our cities as well as spread disease. Their exaggerated shapes and sizes have made the once ordinary rodents almost unrecognizable. The little nocturnal creatures now shamelessly dart across alleys in broad daylight; have become resistant to most common traditional poisons and have grown less and less fearful of man. They have become a silent but perilous plague that threatens our very lives, yet a lot of us are oblivious to the real dangers presented by rats. Because of their tendency to live where we live, rats are an effective agent of disease transmission. We have been unaware of the risks of catching all sorts of diseases and some awful things from this vermin. A single rat by itself is unimpressive and each time I spot one, I am reminded of the infamous bubonic plague which wiped out whole communities and half the populations of Europe and Asia circa the 1300s.

While piles of rubbish continue to compete for space on street corners and open spaces, street cleaning and inspection systems have gone to the dogs and cutbacks in pest control expenditure and increases in takeaway food shop and food litter have consequently contributed to the dramatic increase in the thriving rat population that has become very comfortable guests in our backyards.

Where I live in the avenues, the problem of rats in the alleys has become a seriously worrying risk to public health because of garbage that goes uncollected for weeks.  Visiting the communal garbage corner in my yard is a frightening experience. Fearless rats the size of cats dominate the area to the extent that nobody bothers to deposit their garbage properly into the metal bins anymore. The way to do it now is to stand a few feet away, take aim, and then smash and run. Just behind this space is an open playground where the children run around all day and play – care free; their parents oblivious to the impending danger just beyond the wall. They are all exposed to the risk of catching rat-bite fever – a systemic bacterial illness that can be passed on from rodents to humans. All it takes is one bite or a scratch from a rodent. Ingestion of food or water contaminated with rat excreta or urine also causes deadly types of food poisoning whose symptoms can certainly not pretty.

At the corner of Fife Avenue and 5th Street in the Avenues, there is a huge rubbish dump container the size of a space ship that is eternally overflowing with rotting garbage coming from the adjacent supermarkets. The air in that whole area has literally become oppressively rotten and unbreathable. The shops should be taking better responsibility in careful disposal of rubbish and cleaning up after themselves. However there is currently no enforcement, but it would be gratifying to see some huge fines imposed for careless rubbish dumping especially by corporate companies.

The city council has sometimes justifiably been blamed for not providing bins. In the not too distant past, every street corner was occupied by rubbish bins that were constantly emptied. Many corporate businesses used to even donate branded bins to the city in those days. I am not sure if this is no longer a lucrative marketing gimmick or billboards are just the new favorite. Nowadays, it is not surprising to cut across the city centre without ever bumping into a bin. I have too often experienced the little annoyance of carrying around a banana peel hoping to find a bin soon then finally being forced to deposit it into my backpack because I’m just not gifted with the ability to litter.

We need to go back to basics on public health before this thing goes out of control, that’s the small price to pay or we will soon cry foul after the Pied Piper has left town with our kids in tow. It is our responsibility to make sure our neighbor doesn’t throw rubbish on pavements; if government is too preoccupied to put in place fines, enforce sanitary laws and improve efforts to collect and dispose of trash. The starting point for a coordinated approach needed is for us as citizens to realize our duty to practice good sanitation. It is the only rat proofing technique and we might even consider adopting traditional ways of disposing garbage by digging dirt pits in our backyards and other places where rubbish dumping occurs. If we are prepared to dig boreholes in urban Harare for clean supply of water, we should have no problem digging rubbish pits for waste disposal to ensure our health before the rats, flies, mosquitoes and all other vermin imaginable gain in on us.