18th May 2019

On Saturday the 18th of May 2019 the Midlands Branch of the UK Chapter of Restoration of Human Rights (ROHR) Zimbabwe held a meeting at NLCC – Leicester, Alliance House Basement, 6 Bishop Street, Leicester LE1 6AF. The meeting was chaired by Tsungirirai Kahiya (Tsungi).

Register of attendance

In attendance: Nicolate Gwati, Tsungirirai Kahiya, Lilian T Nleya, Pythias Makonese, Weston Mupfururirwa, Daisy Mandianike, Panyika Karimanzira, Glen Karimanzira, Dambudzo Marimira, Paradzai Mapfumo, Leon Mapfumo, Sibonile Mlotshwa, Gladys R Dube, Olivia Chamboko

Agenda

  1. Opening prayer
  2. Introductions
  3. Reading and adoption of previous meeting minutes
  4. Matters arising from previous meeting
  5. Secretary’s report on the branch by Nicolate

b) Tasks update

c) Discussion

  • Organising Secretary’s report by Lilian

b) Tasks update

c) Discussion

  • Treasurer’s report by Grace

b) Discussion

c) Membership renewal

  • Fundraiser’s report by Marian

Discussion

  • Communication and time keeping
  • Any other business
  • Closing prayer

Meeting started at 2:40pm

1) Tsungirirai started by welcoming people and the minutes of meeting from our previous meeting on the 23rd of April 2019 were read and adopted

2) Secretary’s report by Nicolate- Nicolate gave her report on points that were raised at the last last meeting, tasks given to members and the way forward:

  1. Update on points raised on last meeting
  1. Sandra came up with the idea of having a pot of money that will help people with transportation to demonstrations and meetings in other cities
  2. Caroline suggested Nottingham Forum and she will go and find out how we can partner with them
  3. Tafadzwa suggested Zinthiya Trust that helps women
  4. Vincent will go and speak to Zinthiya about their work
  1. Tasks given out to members
  2. Daisy Mandianike was given a task about women who were raped
  3. Lilian will help Daisy Mandianike
  4. Weston donated £10 towards our fundraising initiative
  5. Nicolate will check dates in August when the youth centre will be free so that we can plan for our Cultural day
  6. Weston will look at hats, caps and t-shirts that we can sell
  1. Way Forward
  2. New campaign

An example of an activist: Greta Thunberg is a climate change activist from Sweden. She is 16 and has 622.8K followers on twitter and 1.6m followers on Instagram. She has mobilised other students to hold demonstrations, was invited to join a massive demonstration that was held in the UK on climate change. She started striking by herself outside the Swedish parliament in 2018 regularly and started attracting media attention. She began the school strike for climate change that has now spread to other students throughout the world. On the 15th of March 2019 about 1.4m students from 112 countries joined her call in striking and protesting. In May 2019 she was featured on the cover of Time Magazine. She is also quoted as having said, ‘‘….you say you’re an activist so act’’

Marian came up with ways that we can fundraise

  • Communication and time keeping
  • Can people please come on time for the meetings
  • People need to know their organisation by looking at the Facebook page, Flickr account, the website and the WhatsApp groups
  • Nicolate stated that people in the branch want other people to do the activism for them and Mr Karimanzira reiterated this by saying that some people don’t even know where the ROHR Flickr account is
  • Mr Karimanzira suggested that we could start a ROHR You tube page
  • Tasks still to be done from previous meeting

We have not yet received the report from Vincent on Zinthya Trust

Daisy and Lilian have not yet completed their task of looking at the stats with regards to the rapes that have occurred in Zimbabwe since President Mnangagwa took office. We will need these stats by the 24th of May 2019, and this can help to kick start the discussion on rape

Mr Karimanzira commented that everyone in the branch needs to take ownership of the organisation which will result in everyone being active as an activist

  • Way forward for the branch
  • Tsungi stated that we need to push forward with the rape campaign as there are also psychological implications of rape that need to be addressed
  • Nicolate suggested that Lilian look at the report that was released by an NGO after the 2008 rapes and also the child rape cases that have been occurring in Zimbabwe
  • Mr Makonese suggested that we should have one area of focus instead of doing different things and Nicolate noted that activism has many areas and that people should not only be confined to doing their activism in ROHR but should be done wherever that person is
  • Tsungi suggested that we can break down the rape task into different aspects so that we can start a campaign on rape and look into doing some charity work that can help these women
  • Weston was talking about not only focusing on one organisation but looking at different organisations that deal with women
  • Mr Makonese was given the task of looking at whether there have been other tasks that have been started that focus on women rapes
  • It was noted that President Mnangagwa denied that there were any rapes that occurred and asked to be shown the women who had been raped
  • Tasks that were given
  • Lilian and Daisy are going to look at the stats of the rapes that have occurred
  • Mr Makonese is going to find out if there are currently any campaign that are going on with regards to rapes
  • Sibonile will look at how many women have anonymously spoken out about being raped
  • Precious D Marechera will be looking at what the government’s response has been to these rape allegations and have they put anything in place to address these allegations
  • Weston is going to be looking at the social implications of being raped and the well-being of these women who have been raped. Weston noted that some of the women who were raped were raped in front of their children and husbands
  • Gladys Dube will look at organisations that advocate for women who have been raped both here in the UK and in Zimbabwe. 
  • We need a portable banner with a pull up stand for our branch. We need people to look into it and get prices and compare. Olivia Chamboko has donated £20 towards this. Tsungi will do designs for the banner and see which ones people are happy with
  • Any other business
  • Mr Karimanzira noted that we are not seeing any activity at National Level and Nicolate responded by saying that she had suggested that we have a national campaign but there was no response
  • Mr Karimanzira stated that both Mr Mapfumo and himself are not on the UK Chapter whatsapp group and asked if they could be added on
  • Mr Mapfumo advised that ROHR Zimbabwe had managed to donate stationary at one of the centres in Zimbabwe. This stationary is meant for the children who were affected by the cyclone in Chimanimani 
  • Mr Mapfumo donated £5 towards our transport money pot

All agenda items and any other business having been exhausted, Tsungirirai Kahiya declared the meeting closed at 16:30 hrs. To view pictures taken at the event, click here.

By: Information & Publicity Department