Lazarus Sauti

Lazarus Sauti FIFTY-FIVE community groups in Chikomba East constituency recently benefited from a project management training programme facilitated by Reaction of Orphans Support Association (Rosa). And Rosa seemed to respond to J Phillips who said: “running a project without a work breakdown structure is like going to a strange land without a road map”. Phillip’s quote inspires Forbes Chikobvu to help establish Rosa – a civic society organisation that is initiating various projects in Chikomba East constituency to help villagers with project management training as an effective way to fight poverty. “We are helping villagers here in Chikomba East Constituency to start income-generating projects such as horticulture, soap-making, poultry rearing, dress making and goat as well as sheep rearing. Our goal is to empower and transform villagers,” said Chikobvu. Rosa recently carried out a project management training programme at Mangoro Primary School. The training w...

Lazarus Sauti After habitat destruction, invasive alien plant and animal species are proving to be the biggest threat to biodiversity in Zimbabwe as they are altering intact habitats, placing ecosystems at great risk as well as displacing indigenous species that are beneficial to an environment. Multiple species of armyworm moths, for instance, are putting down to waste huge areas of farmland across Zimbabwe, threatening livelihoods and food security in the country still wobbling from a ravaging spell of drought. These moths raze like swarms of locusts, a fact supported by the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO), which reports that the invasion includes both the native African armyworm ( Spodoptera exempta ), plus the vicious fall armyworm ( Spodoptera frugiperda ) – alien species that originated in the America’s. Entomologist, Dr. Godfrey Chikwenhere, says these invasive non-indigenous species can lay six generations of around 50 eggs in a single lo...

Lazarus Sauti Ten-year old Amanda Sakai (not her real name because she is a minor) from Mabvuku, a high density suburb some 17 kilometres east of Harare, the capital city of Zimbabwe, wakes early to wash plates and sweep the yard before spending her day selling vegetables, tomatoes, biscuits and sweets at her mother’s table instead of going to school. She is not the only girl in this tight spot as twelve-year old Purity Mwale (also not real name) from a low-income Chinyika area of Goromonzi, a district of Mashonaland East Province, also wakes early to do household chores. Mwale started helping around the house when she was seven years old . “ I clean the house, do the dishes and cook food for the family. I also sweep around the yard and occasionally, I have to do laundry for my brother and two sisters,” she says. Mwale, who is a student at Chinyika Primary School, adds: “I am usually late for classes. Teachers used to punish me, but they are now sending me back hom...

Lazarus Sauti Zimbabwe is an agriculture-based nation and livestock sector is an integral component of it, where livestock production activities like feeding, watering, milking and house-level processing are performed by girls and women, a fact supported by Women and Land in Zimbabwe, which adds that women constitute 52 percent of the country’s population and provide more than 70 percent of agriculture production, food security and nutrition from household to national level. Despite extensive involvement as well as contribution of these women, considerable gender inequalities still exist in access to technologies, information, credit, inputs and services due to disparities in ownership of productive assets such as land and livestock. “Ownership, as well as control of land and livestock in Zimbabwe is still dominated by men thanks to prejudiced cultural practices,” says Mirirai Mutarara, a villager from Chisuko community in Chimanimani. Gender activist, Anoziva Marindir...

Lazarus Sauti Road safety remains a major concern for most countries in the Southern African Development Community (SADC). Every day, many people in the region are injured and/or killed in road traffic accidents, a fact supported by data from the African Development Bank (AfDB), which states that road traffic accidents constitute 25 percent of all injury-related deaths in Africa. Data from the African Development Bank also vindicates the idea that roads are dangerous in much of Africa. Kenya, for instance, loses at least 3 000 people every year due to road accidents; in Tanzania it is more than 3 600 while Nigeria’s numbers are up to 15 000 every year. Reports also suggest that at least five people are killed per week between roads in Zimbabwe and South Africa, making roads more dangerous than battlefields in South Sudan, Somalia as well as the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). “It is said that we continue losing lives between roads in Zimbabwe and South Afr...

Book review by Lazarus Sauti Title:               Letters from Beyond Author:          Prudence Natsai Muganiwah-Zvavanjanja Publisher:       New Heritage Press ISBN:             978-0-7974-7171-9 Domestic abuse is in the news now more than ever and it is time for action and change. This is the purpose-in-life of Prudence Natsai Muganiwah-Zvavanjanja’s book “ Letters from Beyond .” The book is the voice of the voiceless; it serves as a mouthpiece for women living under a heavy yoke of abuse. Letters from Beyond notes that crimes of passion as well as abusive relationships are the order of the day and attitudes and perceptions still justify certain forms of domestic violence. Although statistics in the country show that domestic abuse is rife, they do not tell the who...

Lazarus Sauti ACCESS to information and the freedom of expression are key pillars of democracy – a cornerstone to economic growth, and the internet, without doubt, plays a crucial role in propagating these digital rights. The open nature of the internet is a driving force of sustainable economic development, says the United Nations Human Rights Council, in its June 2016 non-binding resolution titled, ‘ The Promotion, Protection and Enjoyment of Human Rights on the Internet ’. The resolution affirms the significance of applying a comprehensive human rights-based approach in providing and expanding access to the internet. It also calls upon all states to formulate and adopt national internet-related public policies that have the objective of universal access as well as enjoyment of human rights at their core. High costs of mobile data in Zimbabwe and other southern African countries, conversely, are a barrier to internet usage. According to data from Research ICT...