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Two (2) vacancies: Restless Development Zimbabwe
Deadline: 10 May 2013 (1630 hours)

1) Programme Manager (Based in Harare, Zimbabwe)

Restless Development Zimbabwe is seeking a talented and dynamic leader to take up the role of Programme Manager in our growing Country Programme. The successful candidate will have the skills and ability to ensure quality and impact across all our programme areas, coupled with the passion and commitment for developing others and empowering young people to be the best they can be. This is an ideal opportunity for an individual looking to enhance their leadership capabilities in a senior management role within the NGO sector and gain experience across a range of functions, including Donor Management, Finance, Operations, Human Resources and Programme Quality.

Apply
Full job descriptions and application forms (No CVs accepted) can be downloaded from: www.restlessdevelopment.org/work-with-us and sent to: jobs [at] restlessdevelopment [dot] org

2) Assistant Programme Coordinator (Based in Chimanimani)

This is an ideal opportunity for individuals looking to advance their careers within the NGO sector and gain experience across a range of functions. The APC should have a minimum of 2 years youth development experience coupled with a passion and commitment for developing others and empowering young people to be the best they can be.

Apply
Full job descriptions and application forms (No CVs accepted) can be downloaded from: www.restlessdevelopment.org/work-with-us and sent to: infozimbabwe [at] restlessdevelopment [dot] org

“Kings and lords come and go and leave nothing but statues in a desert, while a couple of young men tinkering in a workshop change the way the world works.” - Terry Pratchett from The Truth

Zimbabwean electoral reform and conditions are the subject of much discussion as Parliament begins debate on Zimbabwe’s Draft Constitution this week.

The Constitution, however, is just the beginning. As an article prepared for the Zimbabwe Election Support Network points out, a great deal of legal reform needs to happen in the coming months to prepare for Zimbabwe’s elections. For example, Zimbabwe’s Electoral Act will need to be revised to accommodate new structures including proportional representation.

In addition, the Zimbabwean electoral landscape needs to loosen up. This includes the media, the voter registration process, and also a respect for basic human rights like freedom of association, expression and assembly.

The International Crisis Group’s latest report Zimbabwe: Election Scenarios recognises the challenges that Zimbabwe’s electoral process will face this year, but is optimistic that if SADC draws “red lines” (think the US + Syria) which are enforced, Zimbabwe’s next election could be peaceful, and yield a credible result.

But as they note in their conclusion:

Progress is possible, but only if fundamental contradictions between the parties’ interpretation of what is now required are resolved. Whereas the MDC formations have called for the full resolution of outstanding election roadmap issues even after adoption of a new constitution, ZANU-PF says the new constitution should supersede the roadmap. Without agreement on such important issues, Zimbabwe is not ready for elections. At the same time, without a more concerted effort, there is no guarantee that deferring the election further will indeed lead to reform. At the very least, more robust engagement of civil society and citizens with SADC facilitators and GPA mechanisms, such as the JOMIC, is required to develop confidence in Zimbabwe’s battered institutions, especially through the deployment of an expanded monitoring presence.

This is exactly the problem: “Without agreement on such important issues, Zimbabwe is not ready for elections. At the same time, without a more concerted effort, there is no guarantee that deferring the election further will indeed lead to reform.”

If neither local politicians nor pressure from SADC have helped get agreement on these issues yet, why will the next six months be any different?

It always been said women are better at telling their own stories, but one South African guy has defied all odds to take readers on a journey of a female university student. Please note that the identity of the writer was only revealed towards the last chapters on the blog, Diary of a Zulu Girl. I came across this blog a few weeks back and have been addicted to Thandeka the main character whom I thought was real and telling her own university experience story. Thandeka according to the writer, is making the transition, ‘from mud huts and umqombothi (African beer) to penthouses, expensive weaves and Moet”. I have only read a few of the first chapters but learning that the writer is male will not deter me from continuing with my interesting read.

I fell in love with Thandeka, not just that my best friend in primary was named Thandeka, but because in some scenes I could easily relate to her. For instance her first night of going out, not that my first night out happened as fast as hers, in the first 24 hours of her university life. But in the sense of how easily girls fall to ‘peer pressure’ in universities by the ones they trust. In the story, Thandeka had a ‘cousin’ S who was already enrolled at the university and whom her parents entrusted her to. It’s therefore easy for such people to influence whoever they have to watch over in campus be it in a good or bad way. On heir first night out, Thandeka dressed in her best clothes but according to her ‘cousin’ S the clothes were not suitable for going out….

…At 1030pm S came to my room to check if i was ready. I was wearing my hip-hop outfit (trend back home), skinnies with sneakers etc. You know the teen high school uniform for going out. We all look like lil Wayne wannabes. Looking at her i felt stupid! …She laughed and said we are not in Mooi River anymore I will have to change. I told her I did not have any such clothes and she said don’t worry i will hook you up…I had a weave on which back home we commonly call “razor” you know the one which short and is flat but curly at the back. She told me that by the end of the week this must go because here it was called “kasi weave”. She told me to rather stick to braids or my hair if i didn’t want weave. i was an eager student and dint wanna look rural so i absorbed it all…

The writer through the chapters that I have read so far, portrays real characters whom people can relate to out there. In an interview with The City Press, he says he drew his inspiration ” from years of giving advice on Facebook to his friends.” At least its not from the movies, its from real girls he interacts with no wonder he was able to portray the real life of a typical university girl. What really left me pleased with Mike and all the characters in his blog, is that his blog was entirely written on his mobile phone! The blog has been running for three weeks and ends with Chapter 51.

A comment made on the log reads: “I would like to start off by thanking you for opening our eyes as the youth. I am a 21yr old journalism student from Durban and I must say this blog really touched me. I am set to leave for JHB in the next two months and I will really be the “Zulu girl going to JHB” LOL…I feel that you have prepared me for what is to come and you have encouraged me to really take a look at myself and really check where my values stand.”

Or, Superman underpants

Last week, at Sailing School, I decided to get away for a bit of a relaxed sail, and so jumped on my boat and sailed off to the other side of the lake, anticipating a gentle and relaxed sail. And it was a gentle and relaxed sail for the first bit. I managed to make myself comfortable on the boat, open my beer, then lay back and relax. Unfortunately I didn’t realise there were fishing nets laid out all across the section of lake I was sailing on, which isn’t usually a problem because my boat can sail over them, but a bit of net caught on the rudder, so thinking it was a quick fix job, I just casually leant over the side of the boat to pull it off. Unfortunately at this very moment, I went over another net, which made the boat judder, resulting in me falling off the back. I did grab for something to hold onto, but unfortunately (or maybe fortunately) the only thing I grabbed was my life jacket. Which left me in the water while my perfectly balanced boat sailed into the sunset alone.

I then spent the next ten minutes fighting to get my life jacket on while trying to cut myself free (luckily I had a knife in my pocket) from the net my foot got caught in, in my vein attempt to swim after the boat. After I realised my boat was not stopping any time soon I started my long (and terrifying) swim towards the very far away land. After about five minutes of hard swimming and screaming my lungs out, I came to the very scary realisation that no one could either see or hear me, and since the boat was still on a perfectly straight course (amazing boat!), no one had reason to be worried. I was over a kilometre from shore and was not getting picked up any time soon. It is a very scary realisation that there is absolutely nothing you can do to help yourself, especially when you are swimming on your own, surrounded by nets full of fish, in a dam infamous for crocodile attacks. At that moment I suddenly thought about the H-metro headline, and wondered if they would write about the silly little girl who got chomped by a crocodile while swimming among fishing nets. And that’s when I started swimming hard again. I could think of nothing worse than my entire life being reduced to a badly worded headline about a ridiculous incident.

Luckily for me, some friends had seen me sailing across and had sailed out to try race me, and, noticing a screaming, splashing idiot in the water far away from any land or boat, went to investigate. They managed to pull me, exhausted, onto their boat and let me recover a bit before dropping me back in the water close enough to my boat to save it (not an easy thing to get back in that water). I have never felt so relieved in my life as the moment they pulled me onto their boat; by that stage I had been in the water for almost half an hour, swimming against the wind and fighting not to get caught in the nets around my feet. I realised just how dangerous sailing can actually be and decided that from now on, wearing a life jacket all the time is a very good idea!

I’m certainly not going to end up an H-metro headline yet!