Arianna Huffington, founder of the Huffington Post, is a European from Greece who at the age of 18 migrated to the United States. She married and had 2 daughters. Only a few of European women achieve the success that Arianna has enjoyed in the United States. She is an incredible woman, a television commentator, and author of 11 books. She became a top blogger in the USA with 3.5 million exclusive visitors. She brought the blog format to its limit creating a New York Times competitor, even more than Boing Boing. Blogs, and most recently the social networks, are challenging Internet, a world that is yet to be explored.

These affirmations may seem a bit exaggerated, but Rupert Murdoch, owner of The London Times, would adhere to them. In the last American Society of Newspaper Editors Congress, the president of News Corp stated that “too many editors are not tuned in” with their readers. The press is losing the youth of today, who do not want to “depend on anyone that descends as a patriarch to tell them what the news are”.

If this is really happening, it is also true that blogs dedicated to current affairs tend to be parasites of the press, well, they limit themselves by publishing what newspapers have already published”, assure newspaper defenders. It would be an error for the written press to devalue the blog phenomenon. Instead, the press should take advantage of them by incorporating the public in the elaboration and evaluation of information, at the same time that webs are turned into forums of expression by the youth, which will add new nectar to the old world of journalism. (Translated by Gianna Alessandra Sánchez Moretti)

Author and journalist Clemente Ferrer has led a distinguished career in Spain in the fields of publicity and press relations. He is currently President of the European Institute of Marketing. clementeferrer3@gmail.com

No learning is taking place at the National University of Science Technology (NUST) after lecturers engaged on an industrial strike since the college opened on the 9th of November 2009. The college authorities had made arrangements with the lecturers to pay them USD150 every week as a part of their salaries but the lecturers report that they have gone for more than seven weeks without receiving the agreed amount and this triggered them to go on strike.
The lecturers agreed to return to work on condition that they get their balance in full. College authorities are forcing students to pay full tuition fees of USD750 and failure to do so will result in the students being denied entrance into lecture rooms. The authorities have gone further by delegating security guards to man all entrances to lecture rooms, barring all students who failed to paid their tuition fees in full.  This move is meant to coerce students to pay so that the authorities can raise salaries for lecturers but all these efforts are in vain as the students cannot afford to pay the steep fees.

Students have vowed to stage a demonstration tomorrow if the lecturers do not return back to work as it is not the students duty to pay for the lecturers’ salaries.
On Another Issue

Three student leaders including Brian Mutisi were detained on the 9th of November 2009 at the NUST security offices after addressing first year students at the college hall. The security guards detained them for three hours claiming that the leaders were inciting the new students to boycott from paying the exorbitant tuition fees.
 
Misappropriation of Harare Polytechnic College funds
A special Report presented by the Comptroller and Audit-General to Parliament for the First Quarter of the 2009 Financial Year has indicated that there is mismanagement of funds by the Ministry of Higher and Tertiary Education. The audit indicated that funds meant to benefit students at Harare Polytechnic College were being channeled to fund the Ministry’s expenses.

The report indicates that a total of USD950.91 was paid to AMC Dalmer Chysler S.A Pvt Ltd on 19 December 2008 by Harare Polytechnic as part of payment meant to purchase a vehicle on behalf of the Ministry. The Ministry further borrowed coupons amounting to USD585 from the same college but on the time the report was released, no refunds had been made. The Audit General stated that these anomalies are just a tip of an iceberg as more scandals are expected to be unveiled in other colleges.

 The money that the Ministry of Higher Education got is earmarked for the improvement of the service delivery at the college rather than purchasing vehicles for Ministry officials. ZINASU commend the work being done by the Comptroller of revelaing cases of corruption and urges the Audit General to continue with the hard work thus exposing an evil called corruption which has contributed to the economic decline of Zimbabwe.
 
7 students Activists Arrested at Great Zimbabwe University
In a dramatic event at Great Zimbabwe University this afternoon, seven students were arrested for possession a gun in their room. The students had gathered in Blessing Dubi’s room, one of the aspiring ZINASU National Executive Member candidate to try and caucus before the scheduled ZINASU National Bi- Annual congress on the 5th of December 2009.

The students were surprised when 15 college security guards pounced on them accusing them of holding an illegal meeting. The guards started beating  them up and the students left the room in a rush. The students quickly dispersed but to their surprise one hour after the disturbances, three students namely, Blessing Dubi, Robson Ruhanya and Zivanai Muzorodzi (SRC President) were picked up by police citing that they had found a fire arm in Blessing Dubi’s room after searching.

At first, the three students thought the police were joking but were shell shocked when four other students were picked up on similar allegations and  were quickly whisked away to Masvingo Central Police Station. Security guards and the police have been on a rampage of harassing student activists and selected politicians on trumped up charges evidenced by the charges levelled on the Deputy Minister of Agriculture Designate, Hon Roy Bennet who is being charged with possession of fire arms. These abuses should stop forthwith as it violate on the right to freedom of association and expression.

This could not have come at a better time given the structural challenges facing the health care delivery system in Zimbabwe. The revolutionary plan revolves around the innovative use of a robust scalable informatics platform that is actuarially modeled to Zimbabwe’s disease burden to manage the workflow away from the traditional heavy administrative expense overhang. Clients clients will pay less than U$1 per regular General Practitioner’s medical consultation. It’s sweet music to the broader majority of Zimbabweans (estimated at over 95%) without regular access to medical care, and a comforting prospect to the many in the Diaspora with their loved ones back home. More information is available at their website www.communityhealthcareoptions.org

Community Healthcare Options Trust has recruited over 125 Zimbabwean trained doctors, and over 250 nurses to see to the aggressive rollout of the service covering the largely under-serviced high density areas, small towns, growth points all the way to all major chief’s homesteads. Dr Raymond Chamba a board trustee confidently explained and enthused that “the plan is a structured financial leadership foisted on the social dimensions need to provide basic health care for all”.

It is universally understood that organizations that place a priority on affordable health care coverage stand to gain from enhanced productivity and making themselves employers of choice in the new struggle to attract and retain top talent. Individuals and communities that have more access to affordable primary health care are more productive than those without access to such. With the prevailing service delivery challenges the plan offers real hope to the many unemployed, informally, and formally employed that have traditionally left out of health schemes like security guards, retail, public transport, agricultural and general construction industry employees. It also offers an opportunity for employers in an environment of financial illiquid to put something meaningful on the compensation table in terms of uplifting the welfare of their workers. The portability of the Community Healthcare Options program provides a realistic national and regional template for universal health coverage.

Its sickening to note that many people in Zimbabwe are succumbing to common ailments that have more to do with lack of primary health access, which has been precipitated by the lack of basic health and service delivery infrastructure than anything else. “Our plan aims to bridge the gap between the needs of ordinary people and the inability of traditional institutions to deliver on the mandate of improved welfare for the majority” vouched Dr Raymond Chamba.

 For a country trying to find its economic footing, healthcare access plays a very pivotal and seminal, as Dr Chamba notes that “we can’t get the country working again without getting our people well again”. In the absence of much needed financing from multi-lateral agencies, innovative private initiatives are the answer to Zimbabwe’s great enduring problems in ensuring the health of her people, and this is one. What the health intervention program promises is a very lean, mean, and keen cost effective health delivery system that targets people in their various communities.

The model identifies access to drugs and affordability as the critical lynchpins to the improved health of our people. After extensive research and pathological mapping for Zimbabwe the program provides for the supply of commonly needed anti-biotics and painkillers all for a market changing price of U$1 for a full adult dose. The Diaspora scheme calls for U$30 for a family of 5 for a whole year! The drugs offered are amoxicillin, metronidazole, cotrimoxazole, Doxycline, indonethacine, diclofenac and paracetamol. There has been overwhelming response from medical practitioners to participation in the project given the clearly attractive compensation and retention scheme offered.

The underlying logic of this low-access health access program lies in the superior deployment of information systems, and the minimal investment in infrastructure like big traditional corporate offices and associated costs. Each community health center operating from appropriately retrofitted and remodeled homesteads (for the high density areas) will operate as its own independent administrative unit deploying information systems to keep costs at an absolute minimum.

In order for this model to be operational you need the critical mass of people contributing clients/patients per doctor and a basic monthly contribution of U$3 (for an average family of 5) on the prepayment option or U$2 per person per visit for walk in clients. This effectively makes doctor consultation U$0, 60 per person per first visit in a 30day cycle for the prepayment plan. Dr Chamba opined that “the plan makes it possible and actively encourages people to go for regular doctor check-ups even if they’re not sick”. The fee structure will in and by itself make the model financially self-sustaining and the drug access part will ensure its relative profitability given the anticipated heavy and pent-up demand. Community Healthcare Options advised me that revenue would be responsibly ploughed into expansion until you have a world-class affordable private health clinic model through resultant stand-alone centers.

The health intervention program envisaged and marshaled by Community Healthcare Options does have vicious detractors in the health care industry in Zimbabwe resting on the rented support of their political benefactors who make it possible for them to fleece the hapless and helpless majority characterized by the “health-scare” environment currently in place.

 Dr Raymond Chamba went onto to say “as a death knell to rapid and unconscionable profiteering the plan will have its vocal institutional critics, but as a clear way for the majority to access badly needed care…the people will demand this service, and breakdown this existing Berlin Wall of glaring health service delivery inequities” He went on to state that they “ urgently call upon the powers that be to tear down this wall and let the people get free from the fear of an early, certain and painful death because of in-access to basic care”. In a parting bold statement Dr Chamba boldly stated that “ the plan will work because it’s a God given anointment towards alleviating the health plight of our people, through this plan evil will again be roundly defeated as all our communities stand to benefit”. We certainly wish this kind of community centric, morally founded interventions the regulatory space and public support to work.

The initial phase is targeted at Students within Zimbabwe Universities and Polytechnics who are expected to file stories regularly. Each participating student will get a monthly allowance of US$ 100 per month.

ZimDaily will be the central distribution site. The other 3MG Media community newspaper web sites be part of the distribution channel. These include www.zimTelegraph.com
www.harareTribune.com
www.zimTribune.com
www.southafrica2day.com
www.afrikalink.com
www.zimNetRadio.com

The idea behind citizen journalism is to encourage people without professional journalism training to use the tools of modern technology (cell phones, laptops, internet etc) and the global distribution of the Internet to create, augment or fact-check media on their own or in collaboration with others. Recently Zimbabwe had a cholera outbreak in which accurate information was hardly available. Citizen Journalists are expected to play a leading role in uncovering such humanitarian tragedies as and when they occur.

Citizen Journalists will be able to provide first hand and real accounts of the reality on the ground. Additionally, readers can fact-check articles from the mainstream media and point out factual errors or bias  at  www.zimDailyforum.com which are discussion forums. Alternatively a member of the public can witness police brutality and may snap a digital photo and post to Zimdaily for broad casting . Other  newsworthy events happening in local communities such as Mabvuku ,  Budiriro, Mzilikazi or Dangamvura can be informally recorded and  posted online to tell the real Zimbabwe story .

The 3MG MEDIA Citizen Journalist programme will be run in conjunction with www.zimFace.com Zimbabwe’s leading social networking site. Citizens will join in zimface whereby they will use their accounts  to upload news clips and articles .These articles with minimal editing will then be published by Zimdaily.com and the other 3MG Media sites outlined above. 3MG Media is distributing 10 cameras and cell phones to members participating in the initial phase. Other members of the public with own equipment are expected to send in news pieces and pictures which will speak thousands of words.

Citizen journalism, is also called public or participatory journalism or democratic journalism, is the act of non-professionals “playing an active role in the process of collecting, reporting, analyzing and disseminating news and information,”.This is exciting particularly for a nation in transition like Zimbabwe. It will give Zimbabweans an opportunity to interact and participate in information and events that shape their daily lives.

3MG MEDIA Citizen Journalism programme will be different from serious investigative Journalism. An investigative journalist may spend a considerable period researching and preparing a report, sometimes months or years, whereas a typical daily or weekly news reporter writes items concerning immediately available news.

Citizen journalists are “the people formerly known as the audience,” who “were on the receiving end of a media system that ran one way, in a broadcasting pattern, with high entry fees and a few firms competing to speak very loudly while the rest of the population listened in isolation from one another. 3MG MEDIA Citizen Journalism will change all this, our readers will become an integral part of our news gathering efforts.

Citizen journalists may be activists within the communities they write about. This has drawn some criticism from traditional media institutions such as, which have accused proponents of public journalism of abandoning the traditional goal of ‘objectivity’.

Many traditional journalists view citizen journalism with some skepticism, believing that only trained journalists can understand the exactitude and ethics involved in reporting news. Citizen Journalism seeks to encourage reader participation there it must be encouraged and nurtured.