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HZT peace platforms bring peace, development

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MUTASA – Zimbabwe’s history is laden with cases of politically-motivated violence emanating from lack of tolerance for divergent views and ideologies among some sections of society.

MUTASA – Zimbabwe’s history is laden with cases of politically-motivated violence emanating from lack of tolerance for divergent views and ideologies among some sections of society.

BY EDGAR GWESHE

Girls playing netball as a way of promoting peace and tolerance
Girls playing netball as a way of promoting peace and tolerance

Intolerance has largely been responsible for the high level political violence in Zimbabwe, especially during election periods.

What makes the situation worse is the tendency among power-hungry politicians to manipulate ordinary citizens, especially the youths, to achieve personal political gains.

In a bid to achieve tolerance as well as healing and reconciliation in societies, Heal Zimbabwe Trust (HZT) has launched peace programmes that seek to achieve cohesion in societies that have been or continue to be affected by political violence.

HZT has set up peace clubs in different provinces of the country with six of them in Mutasa district in Manicaland province.

And as a way of creating platforms that bring people from diverse political backgrounds together, HZT has also introduced sports tournaments as well as nhimbes (collaborative platforms) to allow people to live and work together regardless of political affiliation.

Last week, HZT hosted a sports tournament in Manyumwa Village, Mutasa, which was attended by hundreds of youths from different villages.

Like many other rural areas in Zimbabwe, Mutasa has not been spared from political violence emanating from lack of tolerance and youths have been among the major perpetrators.

Several youths acknowledged that intolerance was largely responsible for political violence in their area and appreciated the need for platforms that allow people from different political backgrounds to live in peace. The youths said this was critical for development in their respective areas, adding that intolerance had adversely affected development programmes that could have gone a long way in improving their lives.

“I think unity is the key to everything that we do and without it, there is no development to talk about. What I appreciate is the fact that these football tournaments as well as the peace clubs that have been set up here help in bringing people together and that in itself is very important as it creates peace and helps in ending violence.

“Sometimes youths are manipulated into engaging in violence because they spend most of their time doing nothing, but now, they have an opportunity to spend their time on productive programmes,” a villager, Barnabas Jamela, said.

Another youth, Chiedza Hodhera, from Masimike Village, hailed the peace programmes for instilling a sense of unity.

“These sports tournaments and peace clubs have provided us with a learning platform as far as peace and co-existence is concerned. We have come to appreciate the importance of living in peace through these platforms and as youths, we have learnt that we can be able to develop our communities if we live in peace and harmony,” said Hodhera.

Another youth, Clifton Muparutsa, said: “As youths, we often engage in political violence because we fail to appreciate the importance of peace in our different communities and I think it is important that we learn to co-exist and desist from violence.”

Headman Manyumwa called upon youths to continue upholding peace and work towards implementing developmental projects rather than focus on petty political fights.

“We appreciate the fact that people have learnt to live together in peace even though we might have different political affiliations. Peace is very important and we appreciate platforms of this nature and we hope we will continue to live in peace and bring development to our different communities,” Manyumwa said.

HZT programmes manager Stabile Dewa said, while addressing attendants at the sports tournament said their objective was to ensure that people learn to live in peace regardless of political affiliation.

“These tournaments and peace clubs are part of our strategies to promote peace and unity and that is why we try as much as we can to bring people from different backgrounds together. We are saying that people should live in peace even though they might have different political ideologies and that is the reason why we invite everyone to these sports tournaments,” Dewa said.

HZT donated kits to all the six teams that participated in the tournament.