CONTENTS | ANB-BIA HOMEPAGE | WEEKLY NEWS
by Stewart Musiwa, Zimbabwe, November 1999
THEME = SOCIAL CONDIT.
Foreign as destitution may seem to Zimbabwe's traditional culture,
a casual glance at parks and alleys in the country's major cities,
shows many local people scavenging for food in garbage cans.
Why is this so? A good number of Zimbabweans believe that destitute people are social outcasts who have been thrown out of their communities because of witchcraft, insanity and many other reasons. This still poses another question: Why do they believe this?
"There are no destitutes in Zimbabwean culture. Everybody belongs to the extended family," answers Dr Michael Mawema, a sociologist, business consultant, and veteran nationalist who was detained for political dissent by the Rhodesian government from 1966 to 1972.
But such noble family values have sadly fallen behind new economic realities, brought about by: Years of British colonial rule in Zimbabwe; urbanisation; unfair distribution of wealth among social classes. All has been worsened by present-day government corruption and economic mismanagement. In the process, Africans have not developed an appropriate thinking to deal with the problem of destitution.
"That is why many Zimbabweans today still shun destitute and disabled people," says Dr Mawema. Dr Mawema is also a founder member of the Jairos Jiri Association, the first indigenous charitable organisation of its kind to emerge in the 1940s and to adopt the Western concept of rehabilitating disabled people in an institution, a move that used to be culturally repugnant to Zimbabwe's traditional social system.
Despite such isolated indigenous efforts to rehabilitate the disabled, destitute people scavenging for food in street garbage cans, have generally been classified by the public in Zimbabwe as social outcasts and mentally unstable people, possessed by evil spirits. Christian and other foreign-based charitable organisations, together with local Churches have come in to help destitute people with food, clothing and shelter. One such organisation is the Saint Vincent de Paul Society (SVP), which was started in 1833 by a French layman, Frederic Ozanam, (beatified by Pope John Paul II in Paris, France, on 22 August 1997) in conjunction with the Daughters of Charity founded by St Vincent de Paul, two centuries earlier.
The goal of the one million-member organisation is, in Ozanam's own words, "to embrace the whole world in a network of charity", by feeding, clothing and providing shelter to poor and destitute people all over the world.
The SVP, which became active in Southern Africa in 1858, has a General Council in Paris, and more than 45,000 conferences (local groups) with 850,000 members in about 130 countries throughout the world, and survives on donations in cash and kind from well- wishers. In Zimbabwe, the SVP started some 30 years ago at St Martin's Parish in Harare, and was officially opened by Bishop Patrick Mutume, Auxiliary Bishop of Mutare Diocese, in December 1991.
Besides the Ozanam House Skills Training Centre at St Martin's Parish, the SVP has another conference at the Cathedral Parish in Harare, and 61 other conferences throughout the country. The Cathedral Conference in Harare not only assists hungry and destitute people who visit it, but also contributes to the Christian Churches' Combined Soup Kitchen administered by the Anglican Church in the city centre.
At a national SVP meeting held in May, members agreed that one of the most urgent tasks of SVP was to extend its helping hand to the rural areas, where orphans taken care of by grandparents, formed a new breed of destitutes in dire need of aid.
The SVP National President, Mr Robinson Vambe, says this problem would be solved by the formation of Day Centres in rural areas, where orphans, single-parent children and other people in need will get some help from the Society.
Destitute people in Zimbabwe's streets are of different nationalities, including aged people from neighbouring Zambia and Malawi who were recruited to work in white-owned farms, mines and factories during the time of the Federation of Rhodesia and Nyasaland in 1953, but on reaching old age, were cast out by their employers.
Dr Mawema says present-day destitute people are largely of Zimbabwean nationality, consisting of women who married foreigners but who were later deserted by their husbands who returned to their home countries; blind beggars; the mentally ill; and street children.
END
CONTENTS | ANB-BIA HOMEPAGE | WEEKLY NEWS
PeaceLink 1999 - Reproduction authorised, with usual acknowledgement