The right to education
December 10th, 2008
This infant is being treated by Médecins Sans Frontières for cholera
The United Nations Declaration of Human Rights categorically states that every child has the right to education. However, how does a nation educate its children when its children are dying of hunger related dieases, and cholera, and when its teachers are leaving the country in droves?
At independence in 1980 Zimbabwe’s new president declared his commitment to education with hundreds of schools being built, teachers being churned out of the training colleges and the nation was held up as a model for the rest of Africa in terms of literacy and further education.
But even in the heady 1980’s, when the world was feting Mugabe as the African renaissance man, Matabeleland was being held to ransom, a silent war was being waged against the minority Ndebele people, Gukurahundi.
Elias was a student at high school then, in rural Matabeleland. This teenager witnessed untold horrors in the region, and tragedy hit hard when both of his parents perished in a fire which engulfed their hut set by the feared Fifth Brigade, while he and his younger sister watched, terrified, unable to shout out or run to help.
The siblings had been sent into hiding by their parents when they heard Mugabe’s infamous Fifth Brigade approaching their homestead. Yet, Elias was determined that Mugabe would not defeat him, he completed his A levels and went on to college. The scars run deep, but Elias became a teacher, determined to try and help heal the damage wrought in his home province.
The 1990’s were good to Elias, he became a headmaster in a rural high school, he married and had three children. Then came the catastrophic 2000 elections, a time when teachers were deemed enemies of the state. Elias had to flee his homeland. Today he is a gardener, working in the wealthy northern suburbs of Johannesburg trying to keep his family at home alive. He cannot teach as when he fled his homestead in 2000 he lost his credentials. The cycle of violence returns to Zimbabwe, again and again, and those who suffer most are Zimbabwe’s children.
In a way Elias was lucky, for at least he was able to complete his education. Today in Zimbabwe, with most of its schools closed, he would have had no school to attend. It is absurd that the Ministry of Education insisted that public “O†and “A†levels, and the Grade 7 examinations were held in October and November. The fact that they took place is just another chapter in the fairy tale that the regime loves to tell itself and its people, that all is well in the state of Zimbabwe.
The results from public examinations written in June of 2008 have still not been released. When the Ministry of Education was approached for the results, the head of a school was told that they had lost the papers. The 2008 end of year examinations were invigilated by a handful of teachers who were duped into believing they would be paid, but in most schools it was Reserve Bank employees and the police who were brought in to oversee the future of Zimbabwe’s children. It is ironic that even the future of the nation’s youth is under the control of Gono’s henchman and the armed forces.
Every Zimbabwean teacher has a story to tell. Those who remained in Zimbabwe and managed to struggle through eight years of hell, including the destruction wrought by Murambatsvina in 2005 are now planning their escape as they cannot survive war being waged against them by their own “leaders”.
The men and women who have dedicated their lives to the future of Zimbabwe, to the children of our bleeding nation leave a vast vacuum with their flight. 2009 shows no promise, but Christmas is a time for miracles. Let us pray and hope for a miracle in Zimbabwe.
December 10th, 2008 15:26
Let’s pray and hope for a miracle, that is for sure. Once the best education system ever,a clever nation, a very willing to learn nation,and stifled by one selfish incompetent person, how sad is that.
December 10th, 2008 18:08
check out posting on…
http://globalinvestmentwatch.com/2008/12/10/zimbabwe-why-mugabe-has-to-go/
December 10th, 2008 18:34
Unfortunately, it is not just one selfish, incompetent person, but a whole gang of them. If Mugabe drops dead tomorrow, the JOC will take over.
When Ceausescu was executed, there was a strong fight back by his followers. When Saddam was removed from power, there was a much stronger fight back, which is not over yet.
Don’t expect the end of Mugabe himself to solve the problem.
December 10th, 2008 21:04
The sad thing about our nation is the loss of all that our children were to inherit from us.
zanu has no clue what it has done to the nation.
They destroyed schools during the war, bombed and destroyed the dip tanks, killed their own in the name of the war.
These people did not get any rehabilitation after the war and that worm of murder stayed in their minds, wreathing,recoiling while spilling blood, and wreaking havoc and chaos to thoase who were affected, regionally. The Ndebeles, the Ndabaningi Sitholes etc FACED THIS MONSTER while it was permissible to many for zanu to do so.
Now the worm has grown so big it is destroying Zimbabwe wholesale.
To zanu it is STILL WAR and cholera,disease and starvation are weapons to subdue us.
God help us.
This time I think this has gone too far. The worm is eating itsown.
December 10th, 2008 21:15
I just hope that when change does arrive, the Zimbabweans that have dispersed across the world are willing to return and rebuild their country. I know I will be.
December 11th, 2008 01:47
Sadly, those who praised Mugabe during the 1980′s (ignoring his Matabeleland massacres), and those who naively voted for him again and again through the 80′s and 90′s, must shoulder a significant part of the blame for the current mess. My mother always told me, “you make your bed, you lie in it”.
December 12th, 2008 04:21
I hav eposted this on denford magora blog but if posting it on other blogs makes its usefulness more probable then here it is .
these are questions i have spent the whole summer studying and it seems they may be usefull to Zimbabwe.
I dont know if there is any usefull informacion for the cholera epidemic in zimbawe in this but it seems to me that this informacion on alternative ways of sterilising water could be usuful i have written to as many places as possible i have written asking cnn to talk about these things for example.
There are several ways of sterilising water that are maybe good for the type of emergency that zimbabwe is facing at the moment.
Cnn international did a program on a woman i think it was a doctor but if not it was someone with some scientific preparation, in Africa, showing people how to leave water in plastic bottles in the sun for a day to sterilises it. This method is suprising but said to work. She took samples of the water, that had been exposed to sunlight in this way, in a laboratory dish and tested them to prove it. i have heard of this way of killing the germs in water on another occasion. It is the suns rays not heat that kill the germs .
Also if the people who are exposed to dirty or potentially dirty water look up “solar cooking” in google and on youtube, goggle gives the best instructions and the videos of youtube give confidence and security in the subject because you see the videos of the stoves others have made and heare
their problems and see how simple solar cooking is .
Looking up “solar cooking” they can find out how to make reflectors with tinfoil and cardboard or recycled metal or old bits of mirror, that by reflecting sunlight on to a pot, so that it recieves sunlight from all sides as well as direct sunlight, heats the pot enough to sterilise water. The pot or jam jar should be lifted off the ground, with say say with a stick or two lain under the pot, so that it does not lose heat to the ground or the reflector that it sits on. The pot, aliminium pan or jam jar, should be painted black as black things absorb more heat and the pot should be enclosed in a cage of plastic or glass that is fairly close fitting without touching the pot which would melt the plastic this allowassunlight to enter and hit the pot but stops the heat created in the jar from getting out . In this way your receptacle does not lose heat the heat it adquires from the sunlight. Very big parabolic reflectors can concentrate the sunlight dangerously and heat pots that have not been painted black and do not need plastic cages to keep the heat they have adquired in.they can also create fires that can for example burn down houses in solar cooking there are safe reflectors that arae not tparabolic and more dangerouse ones.
Also If people in zimbabwe who have a likelyhood of drinking dirty water, look up “rocket stoves” on youtube and google, They will find out how to make efficient stoves, that need very little wood in order to bring water to a boil because of their special design, rocket stoves are made of tin cans so the materials are readily availiable. This type of stove allows people to sterilise water with a few sticks, cardboard or very small quantities of wood. rose macaskie madrid.