Rhodes Scholarship Zimbabwe
Deadline: 12 August 2011

The Rhodes trustees offer two scholarships for the year 2011 tenable at Oxford University from October 2012. The Scholarships may be held for three years but awards are made for two years in the first instance. A Rhodes Scholar will receive a monthly stipend of £977 over the duration of his/her course as a personal allowance in addition to his/her university or college fees. Tenure of other awards in conjunction with a Rhodes Scholarship is not permitted without prior consultation with the Secretary of the Trust.

Candidates:
(a)    Must be residents of Zimbabwe with at least five years residence in the last ten years;
(b)    Must be between the ages of 19 and 25 at the 1st October 2012;
(c)    Must have achieved academic standing sufficiently advanced to ensure completion of a Bachelor’s degree before the 1st of October 2012. Accordingly, the scholarship is only available to students who have successfully completed their first degree.

Full details for the Rhodes Scholarship for Zimbabwe for 2012, including eligibility, criteria and information on how to apply is available on the Rhodes Trust website

Where possible you are encouraged to apply on-line as indicated on the Rhodes Trust website. This makes for easier processing of your application. Alternatively, you can seek guidance by contacting:

The Secretary, Rhodes Scholarship Selection Committee, CH665, Chisipite, Harare, Zimbabwe.
Email: Rhodes.selection.zimbabwe [at] gmail [dot] com
Tel no. Harare 790585 or 790751

Rituals (A look at Zimbabwe’s rituals of violence)

Venue: British Council, 16 Cork Road (off Second Street), Harare
Date: 29 June 2011
Time: 6pm

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We got a lot of response to our featured article last week . . . an article from the Africa Report about Petina Gappah’s efforts to rehabilitate the Harare City Library. You can read it here.

Below, we share with you the opinion of a Kubatana subscriber. He hopes that the library will be re-stocked with relevant books.

Your efforts of trying to resuscitate the functional state of City of Harare library are noble, but be careful not to fall into the ‘ZimPost Office’ fate. The fate of the obsolete. To be relevant your effort should be focused on creating e-libraries as opposed to re-stocking hard copies mostly from donated sources. My experience of these donations is that they are garbage and do not solve our predicament but instead trap the brains of the youth in mental slavery. That kind of reading stuff has created mass exodus of supposed professionals to the Diaspora resulting in Africa becoming a training ground. Good brains are sapped from Africa. The pride reflected by the style of your writing displays that of a lost soul of Africa; there is no pride of the literature that creates the spirit of pan-africanism in your documentation.

Yes as much as there is a need for the library restocking this so called Victorian literature can not equip the African child to think like an African and to develop in a sustainable African way. We need library books that build a strong base for an African child to be conscious of her/his responsibility to build Africa, not to run away from Africa. Library books that liberate an African child from the shackles of euro-centricism to afro-centricism, these books cannot be provided by charity organisations.

Poverty for Africa is mainly caused by wrong literacy. For example you talk of high literacy levels in Zimbabwe that is at 98 percent in Africa, but what is the impact of it? Zero. Even though Zimbabwe is naturally very rich, in our minds we see deep poverty, we run away the moment we get opportunity together with our families. Who will build Africa?

In short your effort is remarkable. I am just expressing my anger in the current and previous Harare City Library (the so called Victoria memorial) for its disservice done to our African child by providing through the literature content, wrong literacy.

Hope your efforts will transform the outlook of the Harare City Library through proper stocking of relevant books such as books authored by Matigare, Chinua Achebe, Walter Rodney, Oswald de Rivero, Samir Amin, Dambudzo, Babu just to mention a few. These books will assist to restore African identity and dignity and place us on the correct roadmap for development.

- Panganai

A mob led by kombi touts today booed and harassed a woman who was wearing a mini-skirt in central Harare. Women at the scene condemned the ugly incident.
- A text message from Community Radio Harare

Statement on Media Images of Sunningdale Fuel Tanker Accident

Tuesday, 14 June 2011.

The Voluntary Media Council of Zimbabwe (VMCZ) wishes to advise all of its members, media houses and media stakeholders of the sensitivity of particular stories or photographs  concerning the personal grief and shock of members of the public. This is particularly so in the wake of the tragic fuel tanker explosion in the residential surburb of Sunningdale, Harare on the night of Saturday 11 June 2011.

Some of the images that have appeared in the media have led to telephone calls to the VMCZ offices wherein members of the public have stated that some of the pictures are not sensitive to members of the public who may have lost their loved ones in the aforementioned tragic accident.

In terms of Section 14 of the VMCZ Media Code of Conduct (MCC), which states, ‘in cases involving personal grief or shock, enquiries should be carried out and approaches made with sympathy and tact’, it is of paramount importance that the media strikes a balance on the sensitivity of immediate news and the grief of affected relatives and friends.  It is also the VMCZ’s hope that due care and cognizance of Section 14 of the MCC  was taken by the various media houses that carried images of those that tragically perished in the horrendous accident.

Voluntary Media Council of Zimbabwe

We’re looking for a new domestic worker.  The last one left because she was getting married (logical?).  Forget the difficulties of actually training and living with a virtual stranger.  The search for a domestic is probably more tortuous.

As a starting point, it made sense to ask the out-going employee to recommend a replacement.  For us, that had always been a tried and tested method.  However, it proved to be trying and testing of us.  First, she said that she needed us to give her the details of the incumbent’s conditions of employment.  We obliged.  Then she wanted us to justify why her conditions were different from the new ones we were offering.  We gave her an explanation but soon found ourselves being interrogated on each and every point.  It wasn’t long before we were given front-row and centre seats to her protracted pity-parties.  In the end, she decided that she was no longer able to assist us … because of her husband, of course.

A little frazzled, we turned to family and friends for their help.  Unfortunately our quest churned out more horror stories than referrals.  We heard it all – about moodiness, going a.w.o.l., pilfering; of molesting maids and witching workers.  It all had us reconsidering whether we really needed domestic help.  Three days of doing laundry soon set that straight!

We broadened the search and sought assistance from neighbours.  No luck again, especially since somehow they got the impression that we were trying to poach their own domestic workers with the ‘showy’ working conditions we were offering.

The focus shifted to our neighbours in our rural area.  This time we wanted less references and more potential employees.  That became a learning experience.  Apparently, many in Matabeleland would prefer to seek work in South Africa than in Harare, which is viewed as a foreign nation.

We’re now toying with the idea of using a recruitment agency.  Having scanned the papers, we’ve come across ads that say, “For 18 – 45 years old maids, gardeners and cookers, please phone Shadi on 123456″.  Understandably, we’re a little hesitant to make that call and so the laundry basket piles higher and higher!