The Zimdiaspora
8 August 2012
By Eugene Majuru and Anthony Robinson
Zimbabwe’s Minister of Education Sports and Culture met several disaporans in London last night in an event held in the British capital.
Also present at the event was the deputy Ambassador, Cecil Chinenere.
Questions presented to Coltart included challenges being faced in Zimbabwean education and how the education system can be improved and the role being played by the ministry in terms of sponsorship, fund raising and how to work with people in the diaspora.
Lucia Dube, a resident in the UK expressed her appreciation to Coltart for engaging with the community during his visits to the UK.
“As far as I know you are the only minister who always comes to engage with the diaspora community. Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai and other ministers come but do not fully engage with community members. On my recent visit to Zimbabwe I tried to engage with government departments but the problem was knowing who is who in Zimbabwe.
“There is confusion and no one knows who is to produce the policy. I met someone in Tsvangirai’s` office and was told the issue was handed over to a senior official who is not well at the moment and is away from work. As far as engaging with government and diasporans I was wondering how best we could do it. Some ministers do not want to engage”, she said.
Grace Sinikiwe Mupfurutsa a Zimbabwean human rights activist based in Bedfordshire said she attended the event because “I believe education is one of the basic human rights, I wanted to find out what the Minister had to say”.
Mupfurutsa encouraged other Zimbabweans based in various parts of the world to start helping and supporting the education system in Zimbabwe by sponsoring school fees and uniforms to under privileged children and give them upliftment as it comes at a small cost.
Former Zimbabwe athletics coach Stanley Madiri, popularly known as “Fresh“, attended the event and fully supports Zimbabwe sports.
Asked if he saw any of the remaining three athletes in the current Olympics winning any medal he said: “from the performances I have watched there will be no medal for Zimbabwe. If Zimbabwe is looking for medals it takes a whole lot more. After having worked with athletes in Zimbabwe I know that talent is in abundance in Zimbabwe but interventions need to be put into place to aid developmentâ€
Asked if he was contributing to Zimbabwean sports he replied “I have offered my services to coach the Zimbabwean athletes on several occasions but did not get favourable response from the athletics association in Harareâ€
Madiri is currently attending a coaching conference being held in London. “I invited several national athletics coaches from Zimbabwe to attend the conferenceâ€.
Achievements of Madiri include coaching Christina Ohurugu, 400m athlete representing team GB in current Olympics. He is also behind British 200m champion Desiree Henrys and Jodie Williams, world junior champion who won gold in the 100m and silver in the 200m in Canada 2011.