By Delicious Mathuthu
The recently held Zimbabwe Coalition on Debt and Development (ZIMCODD) Ideas Festival held in Gokwe has begun bearing fruits as Social and Economic Justice Ambassadors (SEJAs) have began lobbying and implementing some projects discussed.
One of the SEJAs who spoke to Kwedu News, Mike Makore from Gokwe says they have intensified small livestock projects, tree planting trainings and women inclusion in community activities.
“So after the festival, as Gokwe, we have already started taking steps into our action plan.
“On climate change we agreed that we were going to intensify already running poultry and gardening projects.
“We also highlighted that we were going to carry out training workshops on tree planting while on inclusion we agreed that l, Mike Makore, will write poems and articles denouncing the exclusion of youth and women in governance processes and advocate for inclusion. I have done one so far,” Makore said.
On gender inclusivity, Makore said he managed to lobby for women inclusion in one of Gokwe’s youth ball games where only man were participating. He said this time around, women were included.
“On the issue of inclusion we realized that politicians way back used to organise Youth Ball Games. But the grant was only limited to the male youths whereas the female were excluded.
“I realised gender imbalance in it. Knowing that a program ungendered is a program endangered, l managed to reach out to Prosper Mlambani, the youth chair for Tayaruka A district in ward 18 Sengwa Constituency.
“I digested the issue with him and won his ‘yes’ that pushed him to go ahead and discuss it with his fellow chairs (chairpersons). I can safely say Youth Ball Games that were scheduled for 4 and 5 August (2023) were considerate of women,” Makore said.
“(Though) I missed the event, l heard it was a win on our side as Social and Economic Justice Ambassadors.” He added.
Makore said currently, he is mentoring a student at Manyoni High School who is an artist cum SEJA working on a song that preaches the ZIMCODD gospel.
The Ideas Festival brought together SEJAs from Gokwe, Goromonzi, Matobo and Kwekwe to proffer solutions and learn from each other on climate change issues, movement building, inclusion, sound public and finance management. It also served as a platform for ideas exchange among ZIMCODD officials and participating SEJA trainees on how to generate conversations and discourses that promote idea harvesting.
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