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Media intern: Local NGO
Deadline: 23 August 2013 (4:30pm)

A local Media NGO would like to call for applications for attachment/internship. The eligible candidates should be studying towards a qualification in Journalism and Media and any other related and relevant programme. To apply email your CV’s to: mediaintern.jurno [at] gmail [dot] com

Finance Intern: CRS Zimbabwe
Deadline: 27 August 2013

CRS Zimbabwe engages Interns as a corporate social responsibility to provide students with on the job practical training. The duration of the attachment varies depending on need and the tertiary calendar of the institutions but is usually for a year. CRS Zimbabwe intends to engage 1(one) intern for the period 1 September 2013 to 31 August 2014.

Duties and learning areas
-Process payments and receivables in liaison with the Payables and Receivables
-Accountants, including compiling the checklists and transfer instructions
-Ensure that all payables transactions comply with CRS policies and procedures, CRS MAP of authorities, local statutory regulations and Acts (withholding taxes), donor policies and regulations, and contractual obligations (terms and conditions of contracts)
-Apply donor policies and regulations, CRS policies and procedures, GAAP, internal control processes and systems for transactions being processed
-Ensure vouchers have adequate supporting documents, approvals and arithmetic accuracy
-Provide the gate keeping function for all documents and ensure that all requests are correctly approved as per the CP’s Map of Authorities, have adequate supporting documentation, are correctly coded and charged to existing and correct T0/ T2 combinations
-Compiling bank reconciliations on a monthly basis
-Canceling and filing all processed vouchers in line with CRS’s filing procedures
-Project accounting in liaison with the Project Accountant
-Any other duties as assigned by the Finance Manager or designate

Minimum Hiring Standards
-Students in Universities, colleges or professional institutions studying towards an Accounting qualification i.e. Bachelor of Accounting Degree, CIS, CIMA, ACCA, BBS, HND
-Motivation to work under pressure and during odd hours

To apply
The deadline for submission of applications to the Country Representative is Tuesday 27 August 2013. Full application plus letter from the institution, addressed to the Country Representative should be forwarded to: 95 Park Lane, Harare or P.O. Box CY 1111, Causeway, Harare or 33A Duncan Road, Suburbs Bulawayo or email: taurai.musakaruka [at] crs [dot] org

Look at me! I don’t even realise how unhappy I am until my aunt picks up the phone and I almost start to cry. I tell her that it’s not a nice feeling this “I told you so.” I tell her I can’t do this anymore. I tell her I can’t keep quiet and pretend that I’m some sort of functional type that can swallow all these election posters like there’s no tomorrow, and hey, everything’s going to be ok. Kind of like your mother saying sweetly, anyone for more chocolate cake when she knows you’re watching that lip of fat pout over your knicker line. The thing is people just keep coming. Wanting their fix, or their therapy. Sometimes they linger at the front door talking petitions, like, yeah babe they’re sure going to make a difference. Or if they get further in, past the gate, and the front door, they sink down and kneel on the floor in your office, talking possibilities. And all the time you’re thinking about slipping out the back door and going straight home.

Fixing things, flipping channels for some entertainment and in-between visits to relatives made my long holiday worthwhile. I caught a breath of fresh air and had some time to get rid of the election hang over.  For past six days I tried to keep myself busy so that I can stay away from newspapers and news channels. Besides the election controversy in Zimbabwe, Egypt burning and the States chasing after Snowden seems like too much to consume in eight months. Summer is now unpredictable these days so I had to spend my time fixing my roof and painting doors, walls and even the gate. I ended up even trying my hand at fixing electrical appliances.

My neighbors were even amused when they saw me on the roof and one of them asked if everything was okay? Knowing where I work the old man living next door came to my place asking me if the new government has also rendered me jobless. This is one old man I sometimes chill with and discuss politics with though his only source of information is state news channels and to him independent news sources are imperialist mouthpieces bent on taking us back to the colonial era. He openly speaks of his allegiance to ZANU-PF and being a staunch supporter of President Robert Mugabe. Sometime back he said to me that NGOs should be banned because they are here to remove the government and cause chaos in the country. When the election results were announced he went on a drinking spree. He later shared his happiness saying the country is now back to the rightful owners and everything will be free starting from debt cancellation by the council. He even castigated Tsvangirai wasting taxpayer’s money by going to court to seek nullification of election results. I tried to remind him that he should just enjoy the remittances he is getting from his two sons working in South Africa and leave Tsvangirai alone. He seemed to foresee an increment in his pension along with pay increments for civil servants promised by the President in his speech during Heroes Day commemorations.

This was hell of a long political lecture taking place on a rooftop and to make it even worse we had to wait for electricity from ZESA so the we could continue to drill and punch some holes before I could escape from this election trap.

Programs Officer: Local NGO
Deadline: 19 August 2013

Purpose of the job
The Programs Officer is responsible for facilitating palliative care and related training for Home Based Care organizations. He or she is also responsible for providing support for the provision of quality care to people living with HIV and AIDS.

Overall responsibilities
- Plan for and conduct palliative care and related home based care training activities for partner organisations
- Participate in development and distribution of Palliative Care and Home Based Care IEC materials
- Prepare appropriate training materials
- Provide information whenever necessary, to trainers and caregivers
- Plan, coordinate and hold regular mentoring and support meetings with partners on HIV treatment, care and support
- Assist with the preparation of budgets for programme activities
- Conduct follow up visits and document
- Facilitate networking of project partners and sharing of information among stakeholders
- Represent the organization at provincial and district levels on matters relating to Palliative Care, Home Based Care and project activities
- Promote community awareness on Palliative Care, ART and Psychosocial Support for PLWHA
- Facilitate linkages and information sharing between organizations within the district
- Participate in developing monitoring tools for the projects
- Ensure maintenance of accurate records
- Present written reports to the Clinical and Technical manager at stipulated times
- Participate in activities to disseminate programme evaluation findings

Minimum qualifications and experience
Nursing Diploma/ Degree
Experience in Palliative Care is an added advantage
A minimum of five years’ experience in nursing
Experience in training and facilitation in home-based care issues
Highly innovative and a self starter
Experience in HIV and AIDS, home based care and community health care
Good written and verbal communication skills
Clean class four driver’s licence a must

To apply
If you are interested and meet the above requirements please send your application letter, detailed CV and copies of your certificates to the following: programs13 [at] hotmail [dot] com by no later than August 19, 2013.

What inspires your writing?
Day to day life, the ordinary and mundane, flashes of imagination in which lies the possibility to peer behind the veil. People. Cities. Other writers.

Have you always been a writer? How did it all begin?
It’s almost impossible to pinpoint the exact point at which I became a writer. Was it my apprenticeship in my high school newspaper, could it have been a proto manuscript written when I was sixteen, perhaps it was when I first read Dostoevsky in my early 20s and decided to have a go. The true answer probably lies in a constellation that joins all these dots.

Have you found it limiting living abroad but writing about Zimbabwe?
No.

Which local or international novelist do you recommend to read right now?
NoViolet Bulawayo, the author of We Need New Names.

What are you currently working on?
A new manuscript called The Maestro, The Magistrate, & The Mathematician.

Your brief thoughts on Zimbabwe’s contemporary literary scene – alive and well or “alive but dead”?
We have a few good writers I can point to, Bryony Rheam, Petina Gappah, Irene Sabatini, Brian Chikwava. You’ll notice most of the people on this list are female. If you look at Zimbabwean literature today, and thinking of other writers still in the shadows but emerging, Novuyo Tshuma, Barbara Mhangami, Melissa Tandiwe Myambo, etc, it becomes even more evident that male writers such as myself are at the periphery while the female writers occupy centre stage, and this is through pure merit alone.

When you aren’t reading or writing, what are you doing?
Dealing with real life, paying bills, stressing about one thing or the other, worrying the world is coming to an end, you know – the usual stuff.

What’s the best piece of advice you’ve ever received?
Being dropped by my publisher, which showed me the weaknesses in my own work, but more importantly helped me to realise that self-belief was important, and ultimately, for all the romantic myths we spin about writing, it is just business.

What is your favourite journey?
Wtf?

Would you call the Hairdresser of Harare political in any way?
It is political in the sense that everyday human life is lived within politically defined parameters. Where you may or may not go, who you may or may not marry, what you may or may not smoke, the things you can or cannot say – all these things are embedded within a political framework. The Hairdresser of Harare is political only in the sense that all literature is political.

Got any personal anecdotes from visits to your barber!
I wear dreadlocks, in case you haven’t noticed. A visit to the barber is quite out of the question! (whoops … interviewer)

What do you miss most about home?
The people.

Sadza, rice and chicken or “fast food”?
You can never go wrong with sadza.

Last Friday a group of us got together to have a drink and speak about our week, and the election. Just for the fun of it we composed a small and unsophisticated questionnaire which people gamely filled out. Here’s our favourite: