Youth participation and engagement in Zimbabwe

Story by Jakob Falk, Evaluation and Research

We have successfully concluded our CISU supported Rights and Participation project together with our partner Justice for Children (JCT). The project took place in Mutare, Zimbabwe from October 2021 to March 2023 against a backdrop of the country’s shrinking civic space. With this project we have strengthened young people’s awareness of their rights and democratic engagement.

Context:

Mutare is a city located in the eastern part of Zimbabwe bordering with Mozambique. With a total population of more than 500.000 people in its wider metropolitan area, it is the most populous city in the Manicaland province and the third most populous city of Zimbabwe. The main economic activities of the area are mining, agriculture, and hospitality.

The city of Mutare has been experiencing an influx movement of people into the city because of the illegal diamond mining activities in Chiadzwa district and illegal gold panning in Penhalonga and other surrounding areas. This has resulted in the rapid increase of the population consequently exerting pressure on the limited resources. An estimated 75.000 residents live in a total number of 34.000 shacks. The unemployment level is estimated to be around 80 % like the rest of the country.

In high-density communities such as Sakubva, Dangamvura and Chikanga young people face a variety of challenges. In the survey carried out by the end of the project, more than half of the respondents (51 %) assess that economic security is one of the most important issues affecting their lives. Other major issues include access to basic resources (36 %), mental health (34 %) and drugs (25 %). In 2022, we interviewed young people in Mutare who expressed their concerns for the conditions that the youth in the communities are facing.

In your opinion, what are the most important issues currently affecting your life?

The dire situation of youth living in the marginalized communities leave many of them vulnerable to abuse and manipulation, particularly by politicians. This highlights the need for this intervention emphasizing civic resilience and participation among young people.

What have we done in the project?

Throughout the Rights and Participation intervention, we have engaged youth actively in not only understanding their rights, but also on how to exercise them. 30 youth-led organisations have been engaged in training sessions on their basic rights, participated in a tour of constitutional institutions in Harare and in virtual public lectures on key aspects of participation. To reach and engage a larger audience, we have carried out community-based awareness and online social media campaigns. Lastly we have encouraged young people to participate in governance issues so that their issues and challenges are not left out in political decisions.

Human Rights Mobile Clinic in Dangamvura located in Mutare

JCT officer facilitating a coaching and mentoring session in Sakubva, Mutare

A youth delegation from Mutare in Harare to visit the constitutional court of Zimbabwe

A youth delegation from Mutare in Harare visiting the national parliament of Zimbabwe

The project outreach and results

With the intervention we have had a large outreach reaching an estimated 44.935 young people in total. From this group of people, we have directly strengthened the democratic engagement and participation of 2.231 young people. They are the project’s core group. Based on a strategy of using training, mentorship and micro grants in combination, we effectively built up the capacity of the youth-led organisations that they represent. Many of them have become ambassadors in their communities influencing and inspiring other young people. However, it is uncertain how many young people (indirect target group) that they have been able to reach and engage with.

Through the community-based awareness campaigns and social media campaigns, we have managed to get an outreach of 41.763. This group of young people have been informed and may have raised their awareness level on their rights. The community-based awareness campaigns were based on drive-through activities in the communities ensuring a high level of outreach. However, drive-through activities do not allow for deeper conversations and involvement. Thus, it is questionable to what extent these activities have strengthened youth participation and youth engagement. The social media campaigns have had some outreach, but with the high data costs in Zimbabwe the youth in the marginalized communities lack access to online content that requires a high data usage, e.g. videos, online meetings/lectures, live streams. As an example, we experienced that the turnout to the virtual public lectures was significantly lower than expected. So, we aired one of the lectures on the local radio instead to ensure a high outreach.

Lastly, we have supported 941 young people with legal services, birth and identity registrations, counselling and health support. With these services, some of them have acquired the legal right to participate in national processes and governance.

What have we learned?

Based on the experiences from this intervention there are a number of lessons learned that we have drawn out an can apply for our future interventions. The key learnings include:  

• By combining collective training sessions, with ongoing individual mentorship and accessibility of micro grants we strengthened the outreach of youth-led organisations and their capacity to foster civic participation among young people in the communities. The combination of activities supports the sustainability of the project.

• Using online tools and platforms to engage with young people is not an easy fix. In a context where youth lack access to data, we need to carefully think about how to do online campaigns and find sustainable longer-term solutions for providing young people online access. We are now exploring ways to do it in the newly supported CISU project Rights and Participation II.

• As the country approaches the national election scheduled for August 23 2023 it is imperative to stay apolitical to avoid any conflicts with the government, since most urban areas become politically sensitive as the run up to the election unfolds. Thus, in this type of intervention, we have to ensure sufficient resources and people on the ground who are attentive to the attention politicised activities attract.