Prepared by Marieke Clarke

Grassroots Performing Arts under Ephson Ngadya opened the day with music. Ephson shared his experience of working with GPA- the need to express ourselves through the theatre and arts, in order to develop our self-worth and sense of responsibility as young people. Formal organisation is necessary to handle issues of health, economics, poverty and oppression. We need to encourage as much participation as possible.

How do small theatre companies survive in such harsh times as these? We need to have a place in which to express ourselves. Bigger groups may make false claims of being representative because they do not have our bottom-up approach. We lobby and advocate to benefit the work of young people.

The societies-such as churches, community centres- which we serve at home can measure our success.

So we are glad here to have the chance to talk about our approach.

Diana Jeater: Our dayschool has always tried to practise the same approach of people to people linking.

Thoko Matshe began by speaking in isiNdebele for quite some time; unfortunately your rapporteuse is insufficiently able to understand the language to be able to report.

Later she said: We are a different people from the people you know us as when we live in a country where there are so many sensitivities eg. To sounds of approaching danger (from the police) . We have qualifications and skills which we cannot practise in our own country. How long and what will it take?

Wellington Chibebe Secretary-General of the ZCTU: From a protracted liberation struggle, we welcomed our heroes. We are now preparing to run away, to listen to the noises, to find new ways of making a living.

He told how people leave Matabeleland South to go to South Africa. Outsiders say "Why do you let one man ruin your country?

Today people are talking about white farmers and farm workers and their children. These people are by origin Malawians, Mozambiquans, Zambians. What are we inculcating in them? As Trade Unionists what are we to think as farm workers are retrenched and you may have to go to a Border Gezi camp before you go to university?

Mugabe was our hero even in 1995. Can we say the same today?

It was announced that the collections would be for displaced people in Zimbabwe and go to various organisations.

WORKSHOP 1 (morning & afternoon sessions): LAND, ENVIRONMENT & FOOD SECURITY
(report not yet available; but see written presentation from Rob Monro)

WORKSHOP 2 (morning & afternoon sessions): SUSTAINABILITY

Report by Diana Jeater

Sustainability panels at BZS Dayschool, 2002.

The morning panel began with Ennie Chipembere talking about the work preparing for the World Summit. She outlined the involvement of NGOs in seeking to develop a coherent position based on Zimbabwe's various interests in sustainability. In particular, Ennie outlined her own involvement in the 'Brainstorming and Priority Setting on World Summit for Sustainable Development' forum held in Harare in August, which brought together a wide range of interest groups to thrash out issues such as the relative roles of government, NGOs and the private sector in promoting sustainable development.

Ennie provided us with several reports relating to the preparation for the WSSD, that are now held by Diana Jeater for anyone interested to consult. They are:
· Zero (Zimbabwe Regional Environment Organisation), Sustainable Development in Action. Examples from Civil Society.
This covers CAMPFIRE, Development Trust of Insiza, Zvishavane Integrated Water Project (Mr Phiri's project), Power from the Wind Project, and the project to develop a civil society guide to the law-making process in SADC countries.
· F. Mutepfa, ZERO, Summary of Agenda 21
· Commission on Sustainable Development, acting as the preparatory committee for the WSSD, Chairman's text for negotiation, advance unedited text, 9th May 2002.
· Minutes of the Brainstorming and Priority Setting on WSSD, Harare, 1st August 2002.

Ennie raised a number of issues regarding the preparations for the WSSD, including:
· There was a tendency, particularly in the private sector, to assume that sustainability was only about environmental issues, and did not affect their work. She emphasised that sustainability was an economic programme as well as an environmental one.
· Ennie also noted that the interests represented from the grassroots activists were important, but not fully acknowledged by the policy-makers.

Ennie's presentation set the framework for the next two contributions.

Sam Page described, using slides, her project to develop organic cotton cultivation in northern Zimbabwe. She made many pertinent observations, including:
· organic cultivation is very important for smallholder farmers, because of the extreme lack of health and safety education and regulation in the use of pesticides, fungicides insecticides and fertiliser chemicals. Pesticides and fungicides are often used without any protective clothing, and no specialised applicators. Contact with these chemicals can undermine immune systems, with devastating effect in areas with high HIV infection.
· the ecolab attached to Fambidzanai has enabled farmers to gain practical and effective knowledge of how to farm organically.
· Biodiversity increased rapidly with organic methods, and there was no damage to productivity over the long term (as there often is with high chemical inputs).
· the organic cotton needs separate milling, after the non-organic cotton has been processed, in order to ensure international organic standard accreditation. A commercial mill was prepared to do this, but the project needed enough capital to ensure transport and collective marketing of the cotton in large quantities to make this viable. Individual traders, with only a few bags of cotton to trade, would not be able to get their cotton treated separately.
· The project's cotton was successfully turned into t-shirts by an overseas collective. However, the funders felt that progress was too slow and not enough 'development' had been demonstrated. It was pointed out that the farmers were still learning how to produce and market a premium product in a global economy, but these considerations were rejected.
· Consequently, the funding needed to support the processing of the cotton was withdrawn, and the project is no longer viable.

Nick James described the uses and value of indigenous food sources in cotton-growing economies, emphasising their vital role in keeping people alive and healthy during drought seasons. This led to a lively debate in which several issues were raised:
· In a globalised economy, does 'sustainable development' mean turning such local resources into marketable commodities? There is a strong element of the WSSD (and within the UK's DfID) that this is what 'development' means: making indigenous resources marketable and therefore worth preserving. (A similar argument underpins CAMPFIRE).
· Sam Page's experience suggested that this is not appropriate, and that local processing and marketing of cash crops using organic farming methods is a better way of preserving biodiversity and long-term sustainability.
· There are problems about controlling ownership over, and access to, indigenous resources. If they remain just as local people's safety net to ensure nutritional needs are met, there is low demand for them, and this helps to ensure that they continue to be available to local people. However, when a market develops - as it has done for dried caterpillars, which are now widely sold in supermarkets and exported to expatriot southern African communities elsewhere in the world - then local people find their resources are taken by people coming in from elsewhere, who need to raise cash and so come to harvest them. A similar problem has occurred with honey, which, as one person commented, 'we used to find in the forest, but now we only find it in the supermarket'.
· It was noted that it is very difficult to find fair and effective ways of policing access to indigenous resources. Limits to caterpillar harvesting have been tried, but this requires a lot of policing. CAMPFIRE has run into problems defining 'immigrant' communities' rights over local fauna, for example in the Zambezi valley, where Ndebele farmers are in dispute with Tonga communities.

Finally, it was noted the DfID's approach to 'development' has been to attempt to impose capital-intensive, non-sustainable farming methods. Jyoti Fernandes suggested that farmers in Zimbabwe should link with campaigners in India who are attempting to regain control over their development process and to reject aid packages that require big marketing and productivity increases as the marker of success.
It was agreed that Diana would follow this up with Ennie and Jyoti.

* * *

The afternoon panel was much smaller, and addressed some difficult questions about how we should think about 'development' and 'sustainability'.
We were all too busy talking and thinking to take systematic notes, but these were some of the issues that were considered:

· We started by returning to the suggestion from the morning's panel about linking with Indian farmers, and the question 'will Zimbabwean farmers be more likely to be ready to learn from Indian farmers than from UK advisors on sustainable farming?'

· This led to a discussion about whether Zimbabwean farmers actually need to learn anything from farmers elsewhere, and, even if they do, is it our job in the UK to be trying to organise this for them? There was some disquiet about the constant assumption that 'we' can 'help' Zimbabwe's farmers by suggesting that they are doing something wrong and ought to learn from someone else.

· It was observed that Zimbabwean farmers grow cash crops at the highest yields they can manage because they want to be part of the global consumer society. Their needs and interests are very different from those of the sort of people who offer advice on sustainability in rich countries, who have consciously rejected consumerism and high yields as the main aim of their farming.

· Instead, we asked 'what might we learn from Zimbabwe, and who might we be willing to learn it from?' This led on to a discussion about drought management, and the work of Mr Phiri. It was noted that Mr Phiri's work is not recognised as special and different by his neighbours, many of whom still regard water management as a question of mechanical expertise rather than requiring a different way of thinking about stewardship of the land. It was noted that many of these farmers do posses remarkable mechanical expertise that has enabled them to access water, and that they have a pride in these achievements. Our obsession with Mr Phiri's work may seem to be a rejection of their expertise. Our championing of sustainability may also appear as a new version of a typical colonial pattern, deciding that Africans do not know how to farm properly, and that we know better what is good for them.

· The question of water management led on to a discussion about the viability of much of the newly-redistributed land, previously used for ranching by white farmers, and growing mostly mpane scrub. In particular, we discussed tree cultivation and the need for annual cycles of fruiting trees, so that there is always one set of trees producing a good crop. The need to make the new plots viable year-on-year straight away may cause difficulties and cash-flow problems for the new farmers on these lands, which will encourage the use of chemical inputs and probably also GMO crops. It was noted that Agritex in Zimbabwe also has little interest in or knowledge of organic methods.

· This brought us back to the question of whether farmers in Zimbabwe therefore needed outside help and advice, and, if so, what kind of role we could play from the UK. It was noted that there are very good sustainable farming organisations offering training and support within Zimbabwe itself, but that they have limited impact (as the Soil Association etc. have limited but valuable impact here). It might be seen as arrogant to assume that outsiders can do more to 'help' than these internal agencies.

· Overall, the workshop highlighted the often-overlooked political difficulties in attempting to foster and maintain sustainable land-use projects, when the interests of those involved in low-input farming across the globe are so different, and reflecting different concerns and available choices. However, the genuine warmth and mutual learning of grassroots contacts, such as those between Jyoti's community in Somerset and Mr Phiri and Clever Tabaziba in Zimbabwe, was seen as a positive way forward.

· We agreed to pursue the India option, because it is about pressuring DfID, which does seem an appropriate focus for a UK-based organisation. Also, via Jyoti, it would encourage a three-way linking between small-scale sustainable farmers in UK, India and Zimbabwe.

WORKSHOP 3 (afternoon session only): LIVELIHOODS

HIV/AIDS and Food Security

Report by Bridget Samuels

Rosemary Zvirawa, from ZHIVAF (Zimbabwe HIV and AIDS Forum) talked about her experience working with Zimbabweans in London through the NHS and through ZHIVAF since the early nineties.

ZHIVAF's main work at the moment is advising people how to access health institutions, counselling and some hospital/home visits. At times people are not aware of their rights. Treatment is free and under the Human Rights Act, people who have been diagnosed HIV+ cannot be sent home as there is no treatment if they are sent back. However, there are a great many other problems faced by Zimabweans in the UK.

People enter the U.K. roughly under these groups: 1.Visitors (6 month permits) 2.Students 3.Nurses/professionals 4. Asylum seekers 5. Other

Many are working long hours for low rates. They cannot rest properly, often are not eating well, fighting with the Home Office, struggling with many adjustments eg. childcare. (There is no extended family to care for children, childcare is v. expensive, legal issues of child protection have to be understood.)

Many high profile professionals find themselves in menial jobs, and this often leads to family breakdowns with men frustrated, their egos crushed. The stress resulting from these problems makes recovery extremely difficult.

Most Zimbabweans, positive or not want, to be buried at home. The cost of returning the body is between £1,800 and £6000. There are a lot of discussions on this issue within the community on forming a burial society or insurance to fund transportation while one is alive. There is a large group of people won't go home when they are very sick - there is the fear of being regarded as a failure, and also the psychological burden of not wanting to admit you are dying.

Rosemary mentioned 3 London organisations who are dealing with HIV/AIDS among African communities: Terence Higgins Trust, The Lighthouse, and Black Liners in Brixton. There are also other Zimbabwean groups e.g. churches who are visit the ill, dying and bereaved (e.g. Zimbabwe Fellowship)

The few active members in Zhivaf would like to see other Zimbabweans - positive or not - take over the running and the recruitment of younger volunteers into ZHIVAF,especially for Health Promotions purposes. Membership has dwindled while the need is increasing. CONTACT HER THROUGH BZS!!

Dr Theresa Watts spoke more about the history of AIDS in Africa, with numerous case studies from her own experience in Zambia, Zimbabwe and S.Africa. She mentioned some of the causes of the rapid spread of the disease in southern Africa via trade routes ,prostitution, migrant labour and the high cost of lobola (men cannot afford to marry, and have informal relations instead.)

She showed a 'key diagram' which indicated clearly the complex costs which fall on a household in which there is an AIDS patient. AIDS causes a significant loss of labour for producing food in subsistence farms. Cash crops are diverted to food crops, causing an additional loss of income. There is a need to consider simple affordable mechanisation (eg animal ploughing and weeding).

Her work on the relation between TB and AIDS has shown that many people who become ill get TB and may give it to cattle (and vice versa), and that people are now beginning to think that if they've got TB they've got AIDS.

Dr Sam Page made the point that 'You can't live with AIDS. You die of AIDS, but you can live with HIV.' She went on to talk about the critical importance of caring for the health of those who are HIV positive.

In the UK, such people often live for 15 years or more, due to a healthier diet, and the use of supplements, vitamins etc. In Zimbabwe they will be lucky to live 5 years. The implications of this are enormous. IF HIV+ MOTHERS COULD STAY ALIVE FOR 15 YEARS THE NUMBER OF AIDS ORPHANS WOULD BE DRASTICALLY REDUCED.

Peasant farmers in Zimbabwe are starting to grow traditional foods again in reaction to the concentration on hybrid maize. These crops (e.g. cassava, sweet potatoes) need less inputs and less labour and are high in nutritional value. Old people's indigenous knowledge becomes highly significant.

The DFDD is spending millions on researching spermicides.This money could surely be better spent distributing zinc/selenium and vitamins A, B, C - possibly through the church.

Girls are not only 5 x more infected than boys, but they are often supporting their orphaned siblings as well. Rosemary added that here too, it is girls/women who are looking after those who are ill.

A final conclusion from our short discussion was that in Zimbabwe, the main problem is still DENIAL - both personal and institutional. Ugandans, it was agreed, are much more open - to the extent that Zimbabweans here will go and join Ugandan support groups rather than identifying themselves as Zimbabweans with AIDS.

WORKSHOP 4 (morning & afternoon session): CULTURE & THE ARTS

Morning session: Going to Scale - The Performing Arts in Zimbabwe
(report not yet available)

Afternoon session: Writers and Times of Crisis: Renaissance or Confrontation?

Report by Marieke Clarke

Pat Brickhill produced a beautifully written and thought-out paper. (See Written Presentations.)

Questions:

Ranjana Ash: What is so terrible in Zimbabwe?

Pat Brickhill:
1. Grave food shortages of basic affordable foods for ordinary people- namely mealie-meal, cooking oil, bread and sugar.
2.The inflation rate is over 100% and salaries are not keeping up.
3 Health services have collapsed just when there is the Aids crisis. In some places 60% of pregnant women are HIV+ There are no drugs in the hospitals.
4.Parents have to pay fees for primary as well as secondary education; and if you don't pay, the child is sent home.
5. There is an unofficial curfew in the high-density areas: if you don't respect it, you get beaten up.
6. There is no recourse to the judicial system because it has been so interfered with.
7. She felt vulnerable to the chaos as a single parent with children: safety can't be assured. Society is disintegrating: this is obvious in the rural areas and in the high-density suburbs.
8. Nobody has the welfare of the Zimbabwean people at heart.

Drew Shaw: Probably critical distance can't be established in such difficult circumstances.

Pat Brickhill: But Bill Saidi (of the Daily News) did write very well in similar circumstances.

There is no sense of a mass movement anti-government. MDC have provided a good opportunity to dispel the prevailing isolation but have been very naïve.

Events like today's do help.

Wangui wa Goro: felt (contrary to what Pat felt) that in exile it was one's responsibility to write. (Actually I think the two women were talking about different things). She talked about the writer as a witness..when people in Kenya had told her about atrocities inside the country, rather than about carefully considered studies of what was going on.

Drew Shaw: One could also record personal experiences.

WORKSHOP 5 (morning & afternoon sessions): HUMAN RIGHTS

Morning session: Media, Freedom of Information and Governance - The Role of Public Access

Report by Forward Maisokwadzo

Georgina Godwin, SW Radio Africa

-She talked about the role of broadcasting and how the Zimbabweans have benefited from SW Radio Radio Africa's news bulletins.
"Ours is a lone voice of freedom that defies the current hostile situation in Zimbabwe," she said.
-We try to feed other media houses about news from Zim but some media houses in the UK fail to broadcast or run the stories we pass on to them. -I think it has also to do with their audience, an issue we at SW Radio Africa couldn't do much about although we want to see as many stories and bulletins on Zim being broadcasted.
-SW Radio Africa is the only outlet for genuinely broadcasting independent news, 6145KHz on the 49-metre wave band for Zimbabweans and anyone interested on news about the country-we manage to get to the rural areas and run those stories both on our web page and also broadcast the stories.
-We try to give an alternative medium of communication to those who cannot access the government media-civic organisations and opposition political parties.
-Keith Goddard of the GALZ praised SW Radio Africa for covering his organisation's concerns.
-Let me tell you that SW Radio Africa is not a British government sponsored broadcasting station as widely believed particularly within the government back home in Zimbabwe. Ours is an independent initiative led by Jerry Jackson among other Zimbabwean journalists.

The Floor

- A participant raised the notion that the media and mostly the British media tend to focus more on white commercial farmers "although they are not facing threat unlike their black counterpart from the opposition who are constantly under severe harassment and torture but unfortunately their difficulties or dangers they are experiencing is not reported in the media here in the UK."
- The above incited debate but participants seem to have the same observation that the British media tend to give a blind eye (biased reporting).
- Participants also expressed their disappointment on pieces of restrictive media legislation crafted to gag the media. The Access to information and Protection of Privacy Act was among the one cited as an act that further strangle press freedom.
- Participants observed that with the current situation in Zim, the media particularly the private media was very important in spearheading this transformation-they recognise the power of the media.
- "Despite the difficulties faced by journalists back home in Zimbabwe, it is very important for them to continue with their work but I urge public to give them support by telling their stories of horror because without the foreign press, the private media is now the sole alternative voice for independent news against state propaganda," a participant observed.
- Networking was also encouraged especially through the Internet.
- Participants fell short on suggestions as to how the rural people could access the media.
- Broadcasting was suggested as the answer but limited resources and again restrictive media laws which doesn't allow private broadcasting stations still curtail any efforts to reach the rural people believed to be the ruling party's power base.
- Other barriers to communication raised during the seminar was language and illiteracy among people in the rural areas- another participant said this could be easily solved if there was an independent broadcasting station.
- Civic groups and NGOs could also be useful tools to communicate with people in areas they are operating.

MY OBSERVATION FROM THE SEMINAR

Independent broadcasting could be the most effective way in reaching the rural areas if resources and the law permit to set up such a station in Zimbabwe. However, this should be complemented by a vibrant newspaper industry.

Afternoon session: The Breakdown of the Rule of Law in Zimbabwe
(report not yet available)

WORKSHOP 6 (morning & afternoon sessions): ZIMBABWE AND THE DIASPORA

Morning session: Internal displacement and the Brain Drain - consequences within Zimbabwe

Report by Katrina Phillips

Speakers: Wellington Chibebe, Thoko Matshe, Stephen Damuputarai
Facilitator: Dr Brighton Chireka
Co-ordinator: Katrina Phillips

Stephen Damuputarai:
The so-called Land reformation programmes have led to enormous numbers of displaced people, 560 000 farmworkers and their children alone. The Harare Shelter for the Destitute has tried to communicate with the new settlers to encourage them to allow farmworkers to stay in place - fell on deaf ears. Many farmworkers are descended from Zambians, Mozambicans, Malawians which has caused them further problems. Yesterday they were the backbone of the economy, today they are denied their rights and treated as enemies of the state. NGO's such as Amani have had their wings chopped off. Harare Shelter cannot deny those who need help but are unable to provide for the great demand and need. Zimbabweans are living as wild beasts because of one man.

Thoko Matshe:
Thank you for the chance to share. The displacement of Zimbabweans will have and is having deep effects. It cuts across families, communities, society, the country and the economy. It is causing fragmentation. Moving for economic reasons: The majority of Zimbabweans in the UK are women who work 25 hours a day to support family at home. They work to buy a home they can often never own as it is in the man's name. Moving for political reasons: Professionals and activists have seen the death of their expertise and the death of their use, apart from exploitation by the ruling party. Qualified engineers end up tinkering with tractors for ministers.

Displacement is closely linked to violence in Zimbabwe, such as the camps of violence. In my village 90% of people are my relatives, so intimidation works well. But family members are being turned against each other. Displacement also stops the protection of knowing those around you. Lots of young people have been taken, have fled here, and have lost their youth. As they are in the UK, their parents in Zimbabwe believe they should provide, when they should be learning and having fun.

Displacement destroys the fabric of the people and rebuilding takes so much longer. Skills are lost, education missed and some people never go back to the level they once reached. Starting afresh takes you back many years. Displacement to another country leads to a false reality of what home is really like. So people don't go home.

Wellington Chibebe:
When some of you here left, how bad was it? This year, at the TU AGM we had to get police approval, pledge no political speeches etc. etc. Are Zimbabweans cowards for running away? Yes and no. Yes because the struggle will be won in Zimbabwe, nowhere else. No because it is not Mugabe himself but the machinery, which followed me here and is here now. (Reference to resident stooge in audience, who looked around the room seeking out the machinery).

123% inflation, the situation is on the edge. The Congo war. Poverty at 70%. Unemployment 80% of the population. Can you wonder why people are leaving? This is why doctors leave - they get a pittance. They have to respect their profession and they feel betrayed to be in a hospital with no drugs.

Politics - the issue of the land. All agree the need for land redistribution. But has to be equitable, legal and transparent. Not to use the race card as a smokescreen. The farmworkers are no longer human beings in Zimbabwe. Land is not elastic - 12 million hectares of land and 14 million people - so we are already short. If you stretch elastic it becomes plastic. Stretch plastic and it snaps. There will be another revolution. Today we are displacing people for the political. And those who stay are watched, here and there. Well watch. Things will change. Soon.

Questions:

Q: How to help?

WC: With political and moral support. Unlock SA and Mozambique, make sure they put pressure on Zimbabwe.

TM: It's not about land or white farmers. I DO NOT WANT LAND. It's about governance. One thing that has to change is the UK media portrayal. Influence must be bought to bear on SADC. They have sold the people of Zimbabwe. It's not about Mugabe but a system the props him up.

Afternoon session: Zimbabweans in the UK

Report by Katrina Phillips

Speakers: Dadirai Chikwenga, Adrian Lunga, Ephraim Tapa, Matthew Sanyanga
Facilitator: Charles Maphosa
Co-ordinator: Katrina Phillips

Dadirai Chikewnga:
Am here on a British scholarship which already makes a marked difference from other Zimbabwe students. Ensured of survival. But how many are lucky enough? 9 Zimbabwean students in 2001 got British sponsorship. It is still very difficult. You cannot relax and just be a student. The fact that you are in the UK means you are expected to send funds back home. Then, what do I do with that qualification at the end of the day? Not Zimbabwe if I want to use it. But I want to be in Zimbabwe, and I wake up each day hoping nature has taken its course there. But not so far. Currently my education will be less important than whether I have been in a camp, fighting, in Zimbabwe. Going back now is very difficult. And you can't necessarily use your qualifications here - you take what you can to survive. It becomes paper. So Zimbabwe doesn't grow. So what should we do whilst in the Diaspora?

Adrian Lunga:
Leaving Zimbabwe today is a political statement, so you cannot avoice politics. I came in the 1980's because my family were accused of being Matabele dissidents. When you're here what do you do? This - meet, discuss, make plans and take them forward. How should we shape the future? Recognise diversity of Zimbabwe - Shona, Ndebele, Tonga, White, Asian, Coloured etc. Give and recognise people's rights. This injustice didn't start two years ago, but in the 1980's. We need to create a united Zimbabwe where all receive justice. We have a duty to lead by example. We must demand these principles. We have to look within ourselves, start there, and then carry it beyond.

Mathew Sanyanga:
I'm a Bulawayo teacher, and a qualified accountant. Isolation. Being alone physically and spiritually, is a major personal challenge here. When I left Zimbabwe people thought I was going to a lovely place. But you arrive at the airport alone. Many Zimbabweans feel emotionally drained. How do you deal with it? Pray. Society gives to someone who gives first. Take the first steps. Make yourself accessible - phone, email and talk. Libraries, churches, clubs etc. Volunteer to do some work in a field you're interested in. Open an account at the Co-op.

Ephraim Tapa:
For three years I lived in hiding in Zimbabwe, before I was kidnapped and tortured for twenty days in the bush. I was rescued on the day I was due to be executed. I had to come here as a refugee, which I know am. I am still working for Zimbabwe, as spokesman for the Save Zimbabwe Campaign. But it is difficult when I know that all are suffering at home. I am not here by choice. I would love to be home, so am working to get there. Staying in touch with family and professionals - we should look at the Zimbabwe community, build up links. We should look at other African groups and Asian committees. Be patriotic. Do it ourselves. Awaken.

Charles Maphosa:
I am a refugee in Glasgow. It is difficult there. There are not many Africans. People see you and assume you are an asylum seeker. An interview goes as far as them seeing you and they have immediately made their decision - no. The homes are in violent, dangerous areas. We are called names in the street. NASS support teams arrive and come into your home without any notice. They demand information on why you may have a new coat, or a TV, whatever. If you have anything new, they cut your money, even if it was a gift or bought for £5 in the market.

Questions:
Q: I want to say some things. We come for different reasons, political or economic. And you work 24 hrs if you can work. You start at the bottom, then when they know you can do it you get the cases no one else wants. Discrimination - discriminated for your language, by whites, other asylum seekers and blacks. At home and work. Pressure. But you cannot go home. Nothing happens in Zimbabwe. There is nothing one can do.

Q: People should know that you can study and use computers for free at Learning Direct centres.

Q: We are forced to break the law - have to work whether allowed to or not.

Q: We need a network or association. (General discussion, book handed around for contacts to be written down, and proposal that ZA should continue to keep people in touch with events and try to organise further gatherings.)

Q: Need to push Home Office and Zimbabwe High Commission.

Q: Zimbabweans need to share info - if they have a good idea they tend to keep it to themselves. We do not help each other.

Q: Low paid illegal jobs. Are you exploited? Yes. £2.50 per hour etc.

AL: Need to be united for something, not against.

ET: Zimbabweans don't see eye to eye. This is a result of our selfishness and we need to lose it.

BC: How do we reach people who won't approach because of their status?

ET: Zimfest had 2500 whites, 100 blacks. I went to a concert and it was packed with blacks, three whites. Who are we? Who are all the Zimbabweans?

7 (morning & afternoon sessions): MUSIC & PERFORMING ARTS WORKSHOP
(report not yet available)

8 (morning & afternoon sessions): CHILDREN'S ACTIVITY PROGRAMME
(report not yet available)