INFLUENTIAL Caps United veteran defender Method Mwanjale could miss the rest of the season after suffering what appears to be a career-threatening ankle injury in the team’s 3-1 victory over Hwange at the National Sports Stadium on Sunday.

BY TAWANDA TAFIRENYIKA

The development is likely to deal a huge blow to Caps United’s championship bid.

Mwanjale was stretchered off the pitch on the 25th minute after sustaining the injury as he attempted to clear the ball away from a Hwange striker.

The club’s team manager Shakespeare Chinogwenya said the defender was set to be operated on today.

“Mwanjale is in pain. The doctors have assessed him and recommended that he should be operated on. Initially, we thought the injury was not that serious, but from the indications by the doctors, he will be out of action for quite some time. That means he might not play a part in the remaining games of the season,” Chinogwenya said.

The 36-year-old former Warriors captain has been in sparkling form for the Harare giants in this campaign despite his advanced age.

Apart from Mwanjale, the log leaders might also miss striker John Zhuwawo for a couple of games after he was also hauled off the pitch after sustaining an injury in the Sunday’s match. It was not immediately clear yesterday how long Zhuwawo would be out of action.

The Green Machine overcame Hwange courtesy of goals by Joel Ngodzo, Kelvin Ndebele and an own goal by Felix Chindungwe. The victory helped them extend their lead at the top of the league table with 50 points, five ahead of closest challengers, FC Platinum, while third-placed Chicken Inn has amassed 43 points with eight matches remaining.

The good news for Caps United is that star player Ronald Chitiyo has returned to full fitness and now in top form, the Green Machine remains strong contenders to win the championship this term, the title they last won two years ago.

A WINDSTORM, which hit Bulilima district last week, destroyed solar panels at a San community irrigation project funded by First Lady Auxillia Mnangagwa in Makhulela village in rural Plumtree.

By Richard Muponde

The panels were used to run a water pump to water vegetables tendered by the San people.

The windstorm, which hit Bulilima last Wednesday afternoon, left a trail of destruction in the area, including the solar panels sourced by Mnangagwa’s Angel of Hope Foundation.

A team led by District Development Fund officials went to the scene on Thursday to assess the damage and make repairs.

Bulilima district coordinator (formerly district administrator) Nyasha Majonga yesterday confirmed the damage, but said the problem had since been rectified.

“Yes there was some blowing off of solar panels, but as I speak to you, the problem has been rectified and it is business as usual,” Majonga said.

Witnesses said the winds were so strong that people feared venturing into the open.

“The winds could carry people off the ground because they were very strong to the extent that it was difficult to walk in the open. People had to remain indoors for fear of being blown away or being injured. Some homesteads had their thatch roofs blown off,” said one villager.

The First Lady officially commissioned the project in July this year amid pomp and fanfare.

Makhulela village is about 100km from Plumtree town and a few kilometres from Mabhongwane Game Park, close to the Botswana border. The area is a sanctuary where the San stayed before they were removed by the government of former President Robert Mugabe in the mid 1990s.

LOCAL female dancer, Tanaka Machikicho is set to represent the country at this year’s Ultimate Battle Rivalskool in Paris, France, after winning the Zimbabwe qualifier of the Jibilika Dance Festival at Alliance Franchise in Harare on Saturday.

BY PRECIOUS CHIDA

Machikicho, who beat other dancers, both male and female, made history by becoming the first female winner in a competition that has been male-dominated.

For her efforts, Machikicho pocketed $800 plus the all-paid trip to Paris, while Rayaaz Nanhanga and break-dancer Felix Mwale settled for second and third places, respectively.

Speaking to NewsDay Life & Style after the show, Machikicho, who last competed at the same competition in 2017, said she was thrilled to have finally won the competition on her second trial, adding that she was honoured to be representing female dancers at an international stage.

“It feels incredible and it’s an honour to represent all the female dancers in Zimbabwe, showing that we can do it too. We can move to the beat too and we are not afraid to showcase our amazing talent through music,” she said.

Machikicho said she was confident that she will bring the trophy back home.

“I am very confident and I am ready to train harder to represent Zimbabwe and win. I will only compete in the female’s category in Paris,” she said.

The dancer said she has had the privilege to battle on different stages, both locally and beyond the borders.

“I am grateful that I have had the chance to showcase my talent at a number of platforms. In 2018, I was in a dance group named 4Go10Tribe crew, which was under Jibilika and we competed at Dreamstar and came second, becoming the first dance crew to be in top three,” she said.

“I have also been to Zambia and South Africa and this year, we have started a movement called BreakNation and we competed in AfroJoy dance competition where we came tops.”

The Ultimate Battle Rivalskool is an international battle dedicated to schools and crews. The competition that started in 2008, is based on the association of freestyle dance and steps game on an exclusively hip-hop musical background.

This year’s edition attracted more female participants under the Strictly4Girls programme established to reach out to the girl child.

Investing in staff is something that many employers overlook and for reasons. Some employers fear that their employee will leave the company before the investment in their employees’ development has paid off. Yes, it is true that your employee may also go to the next employer if not taken care of. But consider the consequences in situations where your employees have chosen to stay and you have not made any investment in their professional development. Making employees partners should be a priority.

Making employees business partners is about ensuring that they feel safe and secure in their jobs.

Creating a culture where employees feel involved and dedicated is of prime importance given the highly volatile business scenario. Making employees business associates or partners reflects the company’s commitment to being a good employer that believes in collaboration rather than control.

In addition to that ,making employees business partners is also a reflection on company’s confidence in the quality, competence and engagement of its employees. It is common knowledge that a business partner would be more engaged and enthusiastic about the success of an enterprise. Hence making employees business partners would be a step in the right direction.

How to make your employees your partners

Cultivating open communication is crucial and acts as an enabler in making your employees your partners. You should encourage your team members to speak openly share ideas, make suggestions and voice their opinions across all aspects of the business. Communication is a two-way process and employees should feel like they can add to the conversation both with superiors and peers and by that they can feel they are partners. It is always better if the communication is through email with all the team members in the loop so that none feels neglected or left out.

View errors and mistakes as learning opportunities

Employees often remain silent when there is fear that their suggestions will not turn out well. When you encourage your team to make suggestions, you have to make it clear that you respect their vision and do not expect perfection. Even when the implementation of ideas goes bitter, you need to applaud creative efforts. ”Making a mistake” is not the same thing as ”failing.” A failure is the result of a wrong action, whereas a mistake usually is the wrong action. So, when you make a mistake, you can learn from it and fix it, whereas you can only learn from a failure. Your mistakes are your best teachers. Each error contains the secret key to open the door of your failures, through which you can enter the world of learning.

Celebrating all succeses together

Whenever one achieves a goal, recognise and do not forget to give a reward for that success.

Successful team building in the workplace often translates into success for everyone.

It is not difficult and does not require you to go out of your way or do anything extraordinary as a common man to be successful. In a team we should learn to appreciate and acknowledge each other’s efforts as well by celebrating the success of a job well done. You should take pride in your team’s success by taking the time to celebrate it.

Create a team-oriented culture for your organisation

If you truly value and want to encourage teamwork and collaboration, your organisation’s culture must support your employees in practicing these skills. You need to take the actions necessary to create a work environment that expects, foster, reward and recognise teamwork. Make teamwork one of your core company values, and put a clear emphasis on self-managing teams that are empowered to make their own decisions.

Show your employees the seriousness of your commitment by giving teams the authority to get their jobs done on their own terms, while ensuring they accept responsibility for the results. The goal or the objective of the team must be clearly defined. The objective of the team must be shared with every team member and they must be clear what is expected out of them. The purpose why the team has been formed must be very clear to the team members. They should know what they have to work so that they can deliver their best.

Work on employee retention.

This is not as hard as you might think and it is also very crucial to retain your employees. Your staff only needs to feel that they are valued and that their contributions to the company are what keeps the business moving forward. Get to know your staff as individuals. Understand what it is that they need to succeed. Give them the tools, support and environment that will help them to excel. Building the best team for your business may seem laborious, but in the end, the ultimate beneficiaries will be your clients, employees and your businesses’ bottom line.

Engage your employees

One of the key factors to running a successful business is knowing how to engage employees. If the leaders of a business or organisation understand the level of passion their workforce has for the job, they are a step ahead of the competition. As a manager, you want your employees to have pride in what they do and in the company they work for. If you are operating in a managerial position, getting to know your employees will be a key part to a successful evaluation of how engaged your staff is. From their backgrounds to their hobbies, skill sets and family life; all the aspects of your employees will end up becoming part of your workplace environment.

Empowering workers

Encourage workers to take the initiative to try new things without waiting for permission. Let them own their jobs, for example, giving them a say in the outcome of what they do.
The more control they feel they have, the more discretionary effort they will channel into their work.

Furthermore, most frontline employees require the flexibility to execute strategy immediately.

Share your vision with employees

A well-considered mission statement plays an integral role in the success of a business, but you can’t keep it to yourself. While some companies update their mission statements annually and share them on their website, you may choose to keep yours steady and private. However, you should make sure that every employee understands and supports the business mission over the short- and longer term. As your employees go about their daily work, the company’s vision can plant the seeds of creativity in their minds. Rather than just fretting about a cumbersome task, they are more likely to come up with solutions that support your mission of increased productivity, while also improving their jobs.

Look for “partners,” not just workers.

You need people who don’t just solve existing problems, but who also solve problems before they happen. These are the kinds of people who have a larger goal in sight for both the company and their personal development. A powerful and successful company operates best and with the most longevity when employees work with a team mentality, each filling a needed role and fulfilling long-term goals.

Making employees business partners translates to them going the extra mile, doing much more than the basic requirements of their job and demonstrating their indefatigable loyalty towards serving their customers. In such a competitive business scenario, a company that can create such a robust workforce can be assured of success and build their capability of attracting and retaining their customers too. Making employees business partners is highly intelligent and strategic move that will bear rich rewards for any company.

 Emmanuel Zvada is a human capital consultant and an international recruitment expert. He writes in his personal capacity.

SEVEN desperate homeseekers were recently arrested in Marondera after they invaded a farm belonging to the town’s municipality. Led by their co-operative leaders, the residents immediately parcelled out pieces of land to each other after waiting for years on the town’s housing waiting list.

NewsDay Comment

What is happening in Marondera, though not acceptable under any circumstances, simply highlights one shortcoming that the country’s councils all have: Poor planning.

In the case of Marondera, the farm that those unfortunate homeseekers invaded belongs to the council, which tells us that it actually has title deeds to it. So, why is Marondera holding on to that farm when it has a housing waiting list of thousands people desperate for land to build a roof over their heads, if we may ask? So what are the key priorities of the council? Is housing provision not one of them?

What is happening in Marondera is a deficiency replicated across the country. Such is the paucity of urgency on matters to do with housing that it has largely bred the chaos that we currently see mainly in Harare, where unscrupulous individuals have taken advantage of the lack of initiatives by the capital city’s authorities to grab idle land and sell it to desperate homeseekers.

The country’s towns and cities have vast tracts of open land that can easily be turned into residential stands to build houses, garden flats and high-rise apartments. Since independence in 1980, the cities and towns’ housing waiting lists have ballooned instead of dwindling simply because councils have failed to adequately plan. The parent ministry, the Ministry of Local Government, Public Works and National Housing, should actually shoulder the blame because, in most cases, it has done absolutely nothing to ease the country’s housing problems. Besides constructing very few blocks of flats, that can be counted on one’s fingers and the incomplete Garikai/Hlalani Kuhle housing projects, the ministry has nothing else to justify its existence.

Given the corruption that has, at every turn, visited the country’s housing sector with, for instance the Local Government ministry flats being mired in endless controversy linked to unfair allocation, little wonder the councils have been unable to meet their mandate of providing enough houses for their residents. It is now quite evident that, besides the obvious poor planning rife in our councils, there is a deliberate ploy to create an artificial shortage of urban land for housing to push prices up. Because of the intrinsic value of urban land, it is quite easy to hold desperate homeseekers to ransom. And it is this situation that is leading people to invade open spaces, while land barons find room to exploit desperate homeseekers.

HEAL Zimbabwe Trust (HZT) is mobilising food aid for the starving Tsholotsho North villagers.

BY SILAS NKALA

In its latest report, HZT said, in the wake of the current drought, a community-based social accountability team in Tsholotsho North has made strides in helping to mobilise food aid.

“On October 4, the social accountability team conducted an awareness raising campaign at Sipepa Business Centre. The awareness campaign took the form of a clean-up campaign, where members of the social accountability team were conscientising community members on the importance of social accountability in the attainment of local community development,” HZT said.

“After the clean-up campaign, the guest of honour, a local councillor addressed community members and the issue of the drought was discussed. The objective of the meeting was to raise awareness on the need for social accountability and help entrench a culture of accountability.”

The trust said the meeting was also intended to contribute towards the achievement of the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goal 6, which seeks to end hunger, achieve food security and improved nutrition and promote sustainable agriculture.

The trust said, as part of the feedback, the councillor reported that after engaging the Rural District Council and the Ministry of Social Welfare, he was assured that food aid distribution was going to commence this month.

“The council also reported that the food aid was targeting every household since everyone was facing hunger as a result of the poor harvest. The council further reported that food aid registration will begin shortly and shall be done with due diligence,” HZT said.

“The social accountability initiatives are meant to help inculcate a culture of transparency and accountability between duty bearers and rights holders. They also help build trust and confidence and help in the development of communities.”

HZT, through its trained social accountability teams, will continue to promote social accountability in districts such as Gokwe, Makoni, Chipinge, Buhera, Zaka, Bikita,Tsholotsho and Gutu among other areas.

Title: Daughter of Apartheid
Author: Lindi Tardif
Publisher: Elm Hill 2019
ISBN: 978-1400325269

IN 2011, I was part of a team of researchers from the Zimbabwe Human Rights NGO Forum that undertook the Taking Transitional Justice to the Diaspora Outreach Programme. The programme aimed at giving a voice to the Zimbabwe diaspora in Zimbabwe’s transitional justice policy.

At one of the meetings bringing together Bristol and Cardiff, I met a group of Zimbabweans who were passionate about contributing to the healing process back home. They regretted the fact that the violence had not stopped, hence, making healing an almost impossible task. The group had painful stories to tell. But perhaps what touched me the most that day was a reflection, not only on the physical effects of violence, but also the invisible wounds. Invisible wounds penetrate beyond the direct victim into generations. The diasporans spoke about the decimation of their identities and the strangers their children have become to their people.

These are the invisible and yet far-reaching effects of violence on a people. Since this day, I developed a deep concern for the state of the African diaspora and its role in driving the process of healing back home. One such significant contribution is the book, Daughter of Apartheid by Lindi Tardif (2019), a corporate international tax planning specialist at Amazon’s headquarters in Seattle. I met Lindi for the first and only time during my Salute Africa Tour in the United States in July 2019 and listened to her story before I could read it.

Over the last 10 years of my involvement in transitional justice, I have met many authors who tell stories of violence, healing and reconciliation. What struck me about Lindi is that she does not belong to the class of our usual transitional justice practitioners. In other words, she did not have to tell this story. And yet she did and speaks about it with such passion; you can feel her authenticity and belief in her message.

Post her interface with what is possibly the most violent system in human history, Lindi has built a successful career and works for one of the most successful entities. She has transcended her hurts and could as well have ignored this ugly history and focused on her career and family. But she chose to tell this story. For that reason, I was convinced she had an important message, so I thought I should listen to her story. In this piece, I share only three things that struck me the most and the valuable lessons for our healing journey here in Zimbabwe and other places.

“I have chosen to tell this story to share the message that our choices matter,” says Lindi when I inquired into why she wrote the book. This point becomes very clear when she writes: “I have learnt that past hurts and anger can be overcome. I have learned that life is driven by the choices made by individuals, families, small groups, large groups, entire societies and nations.”

She chronicles the personal choices that she made to overcome past hurts, bringing into the transitional justice conversation an often over-looked perspective — the personal approach to social and national healing, over national systems. Many times, our work on transitional justice has tended to focus on systems that must be put in place to facilitate national healing. Not many conversations speak to the power of personal choices that help overcome past hurts.

Since the formation of the first truth commission in Uganda in 1974, over 45 truth commissions have been instituted the world over in an attempt to recover the truth and foster reconciliation.

The “successes” of truth commissions have psyched us up to prioritise the national systems and approaches at the cost of the personal encounters. One of the accusations levelled against the South African Truth and Reconciliation Commission is that local and individual truths were sacrificed as the commission focused more on a national narrative (van der Merwe, 2002). Another accusation has been that much was lost when expressions of human suffering were couched in standardised and universalised language of human rights. (Saunders, 2008).

In Daughter of Apartheid, the primary lesson is that we can, as individuals, transform our journeys to healing, without having to wait for the national system to be right for healing. This, of course, does not mean national systems for healing and reconciliation are not important, but many times, they are slow, and can never be comprehensive enough to capture all individual traumas. The individuals have to put much of the effort, even in the presence of well-designed transitional justice systems. It is a collection of these individual efforts that drive a national narrative on healing. Lindi calls them little steps, writing: “And with each of those little steps we take, we all move closer to healing and reconciliation.”

The Lindi in Daughter of Apartheid is more than a survivor. She is a victor. Many times, when we read stories of violence and conflict, they evoke a sense of sympathy. They call us to solidarity with the victim. Through this, authors hope our hatred for violence is strong enough to drive us to action. In fact, it is a key strategy in human rights advocacy to use human stories to drive an agenda. And yet Daughter of Apartheid does not do that. It is the story of a victor who, in her moments of torment, is not inviting sympathy, but rather is telling a story that inspires hope and confidence. The past is reflected upon, not as an end in itself, but rather as a tool that perfects a vision of the future.

“The fight is now,” write Lindi, “or now should be — about healing wounds and bringing the various groups together to build a better future in which all can prosper emotionally, physically and financially.”

Perhaps, the most important lesson from the book is that we must tell all stories, both big and small, in the struggle for healing and reconciliation. Africa’s story is the story of liberation.

And in this journey, the stories we hear daily are the stories of the late former South African President Nelson Mandela and such people of high credentials. In real life, these great heroes are not among us. Daughter of Apartheid tells a story that is beautifully relatable to the ordinary African at the hands of a violent colonial system. In extracting these powerful lessons, Lindi brings everyone into an important conversation. She makes the story of healing a very personal conversation and indeed, we have not yet started any serious conversation on the fundamental changes in our society if the issue is not yet personal. When an issue becomes personal enough to a sufficient number, it moves a generation to action.

I share Lindi’s belief that every positive choice, no matter who makes it, where, when or why — rebounds to the benefit of us all. It is for this reason that I am grateful that she chose to write her story. Daughter of Apartheid is a story that I wish to share with many of my colleagues in the transitional justice movement with the primary goal that we are transformed to become more authentic, more hopeful, more futuristic, but most importantly, more attentive to the stories of the ordinary people among us.

Dzikamai Bere is the programmes co-ordinator at the Zimbabwe Human Rights NGO Forum and co-ordinator of the National Transitional Justice Working Group. He writes in his personal capacity.

Newly-appointed Harare Basketball Association (HBA) president David Pick has high ambitions to try and bring back the sport to its former glory and one of his promises is to return the HBA knockout trophy after a 14-year hiatus.

By Freeman Makopa

“We are bringing back the HBA Knockout trophy. This knockout trophy will involve teams from both A and B leagues and we intend to make it exciting. It was last played around 2005, but then it was stopped due to lack of sponsorship,” he said.

Pick is determined to find funds to resuscitate the once popular competition.

In fact, he says there are potential funders who are willing to partner his association.

“Right now, we have prospective sponsors and I think it’s high time we bring it (tournament) back.

It’s one of the things on my to-do list. I’m also looking forward to the decentralisation of basketball by spreading the sport to all four corners of Harare. More games will be played in Mbare, Mufakose, Dzivarasekwa, Mabvuku and Arcadia,” he said.

The former JBC, Varsity Leopards player said he is also looking forward to the unification of conflicting theories within the institution.

“The HBA is the biggest basketball playing province in Zimbabwe and I am honoured to be leading it. I have been involved in Basketball since 1995 as a player for Mbare Bulls under the late Maxwell Mangwiro.

“My biggest goal is to unify conflicting theories within Harare Basketball. Differences are good in any institution, but they have to be progressive. We all have to be united otherwise we perish. I have to be a listening president. I will be running with the theme ‘let’s make basketball great again’,” he added.

The HBA’s start to their season had a hiccup that affected the start of the first round of matches, but Pick’s executive managed to work things around and avoided what could have been a horrendous beginning to the new term.

“Week 1 has had its challenges, the biggest being games fixtured after 1600hrs. This was due to the load shedding schedule that is affecting most areas in Harare. I want to thank my executive committee for being innovative and always having that never say die attitude. We managed to buy LED flood lights. Though more work needs to be done in that area I feel that we are in the right direction.”

THE Zimbabwe Electoral Commission (Zec) has lamented at the poor turnout in its voter registration exercise in Bulawayo, and warned that the city risked losing some constituencies in the next delimitation exercise.

BY NQOBANI NDLOVU

“We are not registering even one person at any given week. It was only last Saturday when someone organised a group of people in Pumula suburb, about 15 of them to register as voters, our highest figure to date at any given time,” Zec provincial officer Sithembiso Khuphe told Southern Eye yesterday.

Khuphe said Zec’s target was to register plus 400 000 registered voters in Bulawayo to ensure the city gets 15 constituencies up from the current 12 during the next delimitation exercise.

However, indications are that the city will lose at least three constituencies as the current voter registered population for the city falls far short of the minimum threshold.

Independent election watchdog, the Zimbabwe Election Support Network has also warned of the same, saying the same fate is likely to befall Matabeleland North and South provinces in the next delimitation exercise.

“We are encouraging people to come and register. What we have realised is that people only take voter registration seriously when elections are around the corner. That is the problem we have.

“We had a target to get 15 seats with plus 400 000 voters in Bulawayo when we started the exercise, but, unfortunately, that has not been the case,” she added.

Bulawayo currently has about 258 000 registered voters.

MDC youth secretary-general Gift Ostallos Siziba said the party’s national management committee meeting held in the capital on Saturday resolved to deploy its senior officials to Bulawayo to help in rallying residents to register to vote ahead of the 2023 elections.

“We noted with urgency the ongoing delimitation process in Bulawayo metropolitan province and resolved to urgently deploy national executive members to assist Bulawayo province in the voter registration process that is ongoing,” Siziba said.

Bulawayo has been one of MDC’s strongholds since the party’s formation in 1999. Zimbabwe last carried a delimitation exercise in 2007 ahead of the 2008 harmonised elections.

According to section 161 of the Constitution, electoral boundaries must be delimited once every 10 years after a census.

A GROUPING of civic groups, under the banner Matabeleland Collective (MC), has threatened to disrupt nurse training lessons at Mpilo and United Bulawayo Hospitals (UBH) to force government to address reports of unfair recruitment of student nurses at the two institutions.

BY NQOBANI NDLOVU/PRAISEMORE SITHOLE

This comes amid reports that at Mpilo, 20 out of the 24 trainee nurses recruited last week were not from Matabeleland. The same reads for United Bulawayo Hospitals where only four out of the 27 nurse trainees are from Matabeleland.

Mpilo clinical director Solwayo Ngwenya, who also heads the school of nursing, reportedly claimed that the selection process was done in Harare after the introduction of an online nurses’ application portal.

The MC said the move by the Health ministry flies in the face of President Emmerson Mnangagwa’s promises, as outlined in the implementation matrix produced after the March engagement at the Bulawayo State House.

Mnangagwa, under the social services cluster, pledged to ensure that government devolves such processes by giving locals first preference in job training or in filling vacant posts.

“MC pledges to shut down some of these training centres if government does not intervene to reverse these unfair practices from these nursing training institutions. MC also urges government to immediately implement devolution of power in order to curb these unfair structural practices that favour other regions over the other,” the MC said in a statement.

On Sunday, Vice-President Kembo Mohadi, while promising redress, condemned the questionable nurse training recruitment at Mpilo and UBH.

“We are not happy and as government, we will address this issue. Government policy is that the recruitment must be done equitably. We don’t want bias in that regard.

“We are going to look into it so that it is rectified,” Mohadi said after a de-briefing on the issue by Bulawayo Metropolitan Affairs minister Judith Ncube at Zanu PF’s Bulawayo Davies Hall provincial offices. Ncube last week also threatened to force the reversal of the “unfair” nurse trainee selection process.