If you’d like to get civic and human rights updates + information on internships, awards, conferences and NGO job vacancies, subscribe to our weekly e:zine. Email: join [at] kubatana [dot] net

M & E Assistant: Local NGO
Deadline: 13 November 2013

Vacancy: Fixed term contract
Based in Harare with a lot of travel outside Harare

A local NGO in the child rights sector is implementing a Second Chance Education programme in 4 districts of Zimbabwe is recruiting an M and E Assistant on a fixed term contract basis.  The M and E assistant will be responsible for ensuring consistency in monitoring and evaluation approaches across activities, timely data collection and reporting, data quality control and storage, develop an understanding of the characteristics of an effective M&E system and explore how to design and manage an effective M&E system that will enable us to assess programme results, be accountable to different stakeholders, and identify learning.

Qualifications and person specifications
-Minimum of 3 years working experience in community development programmes.
-At least attained a first degree in Social Sciences (Psychology, Sociology, Social work, development studies).
-Knowledge and experience in research, education, gender, reproductive health and HIV/AIDS will be an added advantage.
-Excellent writing and interpersonal skills.
-Knowledge of statistical packages will be added advantage
-Knowledge of existing social safety networks.
-A valid driver’s license is mandatory

Send your CVs no later by 13 November 2013 to admin [at] chiedza [dot] org / chiedzacvs [at] gmail [dot] com

The 29th of October is celebrated the world over as International Internet Day and today Zimbabwe joins the rest of the world in commemorations. The sharing of information is now just a click of a button away. A conversation, which used to cost a couple of dollars to make, can now be made with a few cents. The Internet has brought communities closer closing on the gaps created by physical barriers of distance.

The first Internet message was sent in 1969 by Professor Leonard Kleinrock from a computer laboratory at University of California in Los Angeles and from there the world witnessed the invention of electronic mail by Ray Tomlinson in late 1971.

According to Internet World Stats, Africa has 167,335,676 Internet users complemented by a 15.6% penetration rate. Despite the challenges of exorbitant Internet costs and the unavailability of infrastructure in most African countries, Zimbabwe has experienced a huge leap in internet usage from 50,000 users in 2000 to around 1,981,277 internet users in 2012.

As the Internet continues to grow so is the government’s interest in monitoring and eavesdropping on citizens. The Internet is used to perpetrate human right abuses under the guise of the protection of national security. A report by Freedom House notes that internet freedom worldwide is on the decline, with 34 out of 60 countries assessed in the report experiencing a negative trajectory. Growing arrests of social media users and the control of web content can be attributed to the sharp decline in internet freedom in the past year and Zimbabwe is among such countries where the state continues to have the authority to monitor and intercept ICT communications at will.

Some people become activists through passion while some find themselves on the streets because they are just tired of getting screwed by the system. When Martin Luther King took to the streets he wanted to share his dream of a society where race was not an issue. The general socio-economic and political conditions we now live in demand action and solutions to our day to day needs. Every time we turn on news channels its about protests and uprisings as more and more people continue to demand solutions to contemporary problems affecting them.

South Africa was recently dubbed “the protest capital of the world” as the streets have become permanent homes for activists. Living in a world faced with a lot of injustice and inequality mainly driven by greed, profiteering and ignorance, calls for a collective effort from everybody. Activism is about affecting social change and championing a cause whether big or small. Small things like a change of mindset won’t even require government or big donor funding for a start and that’s the reason why we often read about the great works by Wangari Mathaai of Kenya who managed to share knowledge on environment conservation with rural communities. A young girl from Pakistan almost lost her life because she wanted other young girls in her country to have access to education. Even the young school children of South Africa became active in 1979 demanding better education. Artists as role models for the young generation have also become heavily involved in activism especially towards raising awareness on behavior change targeting drug abuse and safe sex.

Activism comes with its own challenges with many activists the world over being persecuted for championing people’s rights. Zimbabwe is one such country where activists and social movement groups have been labeled enemies of the state. A crack down on dissenting voices has resulted in many people shying away from being active in the community on issues that affect them due to fear.

One of Zimbabwe’s aspiring activists Wadzanai Motsi was awarded the prestigious Thomas J. Watson Fellowship and she conducted research on youth’s contributions to activism. At a Food for Thought session hosted by US Embassy Public Affairs section, Wadzanai and Ruvheneko Parirenyatwa shared their experiences on various forms of activism and the different ways each person can contribute to make the society we live in a better place.

Sociologist/movement theorist, Zeynep Tufekci, suggests we stop looking so much at outputs of social media fueled protests and start looking instead at their role in capacity building. More on Ethan Zuckerman’s blog

There’s a level of totalitarianism that pinches my nerves that is clearly visible in Zimbabwe. The people are always stuffed under the heavy hand of the despot either in the guise of ‘home grown solutions’ or ‘catching up with international standards’. Whenever the government wants to suck money out of us they do it to catch up with international trends.

Good examples are the introduction of toll gates, increasing toll fees, debates about urban tolls, spot fines, increasing import taxes and levies, new police and ministers’ vehicles, etc. International standards are unceremoniously dumped whenever issues of accountability and good governance are brought up and replaced by ‘home grown remedies’, which in most cases have only looked well crafted on paper but void in implementation.

They work these things like magicians in our eyes; most of the time we fail to connect the two dots in the line in the use of the terms from the start of the con plan to steal money from us to the point where we want the result and details of expenditure. A good but sad example is the toll fees which were forcibly introduced on our roads to catch up with regional and international trends and without fail, every motorist is paying but the amount of potholes on our highways by far do not reflect the tremendous amounts of money that is being collected in toll fees everyday.

Interestingly the government is still working ‘flat out’ to craft ‘home grown solutions’ that will insure that the system is water tight and any corruption be brought to book. Others who have tried to question the accountability of the government and police over toll fees and spot fines have been labeled western puppets whose agenda is to serve their western masters and to push for a regime change in our country. Anyone who asks questions about the diamond revenues (including the former Finance Minister, Biti), Zupco unfair operations, civil service inflated wage bills and unfair distributions of farming, energy, water and security resources etc, has been placed in this neocolonialists puppet bracket.

Launch of Openphoto 2013 Competition with US$5,000 First Prize … Victories & Violations – The Struggle for Minority Rights in Africa
Deadline: 30 November 2013

After the success of the inaugural competition in 2012, the Open Society Initiative for Southern Africa (OSISA) is pleased to announce the launch of OPENPhoto 2013 on the theme of Minority Rights in Africa – with the winners being selected by a jury comprised of some of Africa’s and the world’s top documentary photographers, and with a top prize of US$5,000.

Aiming to encourage analytical and critical thinking about society in Africa and support the development of photojournalism across the continent, OPENPhoto 2013 is looking for strong, interpretive documentary work on the theme of Victories and Violations: The Struggle for Minority Rights in Africa.

“Across the continent, many people remain marginalised and socially excluded because they are minorities. People are discriminated against because they are disabled or homosexual or indigenous or sex workers. Or because they are women living with HIV. Or men from a small ethnic group. Or children from a non-state religion. Or families fleeing persecution in another country,” said Richard Lee, OSISA’s Communications Manager. “OPENPhoto 2013 is looking to reward photo essays that depict the reality of life for these marginalised minorities – the good and the bad, their struggles and their successes.”

The competition is open to any photographer based in Africa – professional or amateur. And the prizes are definitely worth winning:

First Prize – US$5,000 plus a commissioned assignment with OSISA in 2014
Second Prize – US$2,000; and
Third Prize – US$1,000

OPENPhoto 2013 will be judged by a prestigious jury of award-winning African and international photographers. Convened by the Pulitzer Prize-winning South African photographer, Greg Marinovich, the jury includes João Silva, Munem Wasif, Patrick Baz, Robin Comley, Yunghi Kim, Enrico Dagnino, Andrew Lichtenstein, David Dare Parker and Janine Haidar.

The competition deadline is November 30th with the winners being announced on December 16th.

For more information and to apply: www.open-photo.org