by Glory Mushinge
- UK -

In much of the world, life for an eight year old is considered just started, but in Colombia, girls that age are dying, fighting in the military.

“As soon as they said they were going to kill us, we grabbed a change of clothes and anything else we could carry and took off running. We got in a boat and didn’t look back. We left our animals, crops, land and home behind… they came looking for us, to kill us and we weren’t there. Now we really need help because they tell us there are no resources.”

• A Colombian schoolgirl particpates in a peace march. Photograph by CAFOD/Annie Bungeroth. •

Recently, members of the Catholic Church in Colombia visited the UK to seek help for the country’s conflict, something they refer to as a ‘forgotten crisis’ because the international community has ignored Colombia’s issues.

Archbishop Reuben Salazar and Monsignor Héctor Fabio Henao, President and Director of the Social Department of the Catholic CARITAS Colombia, said during their visit that they travelled to England and Wales to raise awareness of the problems in Colombia and to bolster support for the church’s vital peace-building work.

by Glory Mushinge
Zambia

International Labor Day was celebrated on May 1st throughout the world again this year, but in Zambia it was simply another painful experience for workers. In a nation of over 11 million people, only 400,000 have formal full-time employment; most work in unsafe conditions, earning only meager salaries. Others, in part-time or temporary employment, work in far worse conditions. Their employers, most of them new foreign investors highly touted by the government, abuse these workers in multiple ways, and consistently subject them to dangerous working environments.

What the workers get in return is pay that is a pittance instead of real wages. But many of these workers have poor or few skills leaving them with no alternatives to these jobs. Other citizens, the victims of the country's high unemployment rate (50%), were nothing but spectators at the Labor Day celebrations. Zambia’s unemployment has pushed many families (86%) far below the poverty line. According to the World Bank, the average annual salary in Zambia was $500 (usd) in 2006. In 2003, 63.1% of the population was living on less than $1 per day.

by Glory Mushinge
Zambia

For more than seven years, the country has waited for the policy, while holding studies and consultative meetings amongst the private and public sector to ensure the final product would become something to write home about. The eventual launch of the policy on the 28th of March 2007 marked the beginning of much hard work for the sector, as there are many issues that need to be addressed.

There are issues of infrastructure, especially in rural and peri-urban areas where there is literally no proper communication infrastructure and skills to utilize ICT’s. In the words of the Zambian President Levy Mwanawasa, as carried out by his Vice President, Dr Rupiah Banda, when he officially launched the policy this week, "Government’s intention is to bridge the digital divide amongst Zambians."

by Glory Mushinge
Zambia

The past week saw some of Lusaka’s top members of the diplomatic community from Francophone embassies in Zambia, get carried away with festivities for ten straight days and nights, between the 15th to the 25th of March.

This kind of exuberance is a rare occurrence that happens only once a year and attracts throngs of people who don’t want to be left out of the fun.

Francophone Week, or La Semaine de la Francophonie, celebrates different cultures through a variety of activities.

Representatives from a host of countries, many from within the Francophone community, made time to play together as they danced to musical performers from Africa and Europe, viewed paintings and sculptures, laughed at comedy presented by theatre artists, and played sports of various kinds for over a week.

Against this backdrop of creativity, Francophonie fosters political action and promotes multilateral cooperation.

by Glory Mushinge
Zambia

As a philosopher once said: If you treat people like dirt and refuse to acknowledge that they are also human and have rights, you leave them with no choice but to fight back.

by Glory Mushinge
Zambia

In a developing country like Zambia, one million and five hundred Zambian Kwachas, or roughly three hundred and fifty dollars, is enough to feed a family for 350 days.

So, when Liness Mwale, a 69 year old widow taking care of about four orphans, decided to save almost double that amount of money in order to buy a plot in Lusaka’s Kalale area and build a two-room house, where she could take her family and cut down on the cost of rentals, it was like further reducing the family’s food intake. But Mwale made the choice to live on less than half a dollar for over three years just so she could have a place she could call home.

by Glory Mushinge
Zambia

The procrastination of government over the enactment of the Freedom of Information Bill (FOIB), which gives the public and journalists free access to public information, has ignited concern, with some members of the judiciary and parliament joining the media in fighting for the bill’s passing.

by Glory Mushinge
Zambia

Africa recently hosted the World Social Forum, which was held in Nairobi, Kenya from the 20th to 25th of January.

Like always, the preparations towards this event, like with many other events like this, carried so much excitement, and a lot of work and money was spent in order to carry out the event successfully.

However, despite whatever expectation one would have had about this, it was no different from past social fora. We heard the same enchantments and themes about problems and issues we have heard about in the past. It was the same people making similar presentations, with new presenters only adding their voices to similar concerns.

by Glory Mushinge
Zambia

While most Zambian people, especially local business owners, have continuously condemned Chinese investors for exploiting the country’s market by selling sub-standard goods and services, as well as monopolizing Zambian business with goods that are supposed to be sold by the indigenous people, The Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa (COMESA) thinks the country needs to do its homework to solve the problem.