Christmas Message from Youth Alliance

Youth Alliance for Democracy staff, board and members wish you a merry Christmas and a prosperous 2010.

2009 has been a year of mixed fortunes for the youths and the generality of Zimbabweans. The major highlight of the year was the formation of an inclusive government made up of ZANU PF and two MDC formations.

As expected, this arrangement is fragile given the ideological differences of the three political parties. This has witnessed political arm wrestling as each party battle to prove its worth.

The main culprit in this vain has President Mugabe who still does not want to unscrew some of his powers as stipulated in the Global Political Agreement. The appointments of provincial governors, Deputy Agriculture Minister Designate, Reserve Bank Governor and attorney General remain the main thorny issues.

This has seen progress taking the chameleon speed.ZANU PF argues that sanctions must first be removed as well as the silencing of pirate radio stations,to them the are MDC-T babies. The struggle has been very tense and as usual it’s the ordinary Zimbabweans who suffer.

The youths especially the young women suffered for they are already vulnerable given their low status in the society, financially, socially and even politically.

The introduction of the multiple currency system was welcome but to the youths, it even created more challenges for it is hard to come by. This has resulted to desperation on the part of young people to the extent of doing any job for little pay and a lot of risk.

The youths were also expecting processes such as National Healing and Constitutional Making process to take shape this year but not much was done. This is a cause of concern to them for they were used as weapons in the political violence, which prevailed before the dawn of the inclusive government.

It has always been a norm to use youths as weapons of political violence, taking advantage of their poverty and hyperactive nature in politics mainly as implementers. The victims were also mainly made of youth. Up to now, their wounds are fresh and they just look with disgruntlement the unity and cohesion, which is existing at the top over wines and eats.

The youths have also continued to be rubberstampers of decisions made on their behalf by the few elites who make decisions. As such, Youth Alliance for Democracy calls for rectification of such anomalies in the new constitution and in the national youth policy.

In that regard, YAD will be on the ground to gather their views as well as educating the young people on the loopholes of the current constitution.YAD shall also embark on a project called sports for transformation, which seeks to use sport as unifying factor.

This will be done courtesy of bringing people together and share with them Information, Education and Communication material on conflict transformation and Peace Building. They will also be very brief questioners on the views of youths on the process and this will be submitted to the relevant policy making bodies.

Once again Merry Christmas and a happy new year. It is our hope that we will continue to work together next year. 

Media and Communications Desk