Vusumuzi Dube Deputy Radar Editor
THE Government is working round the clock to transform key liberation sites into permanent monuments in a major drive to preserve the country’s history and honour those who sacrificed their lives for the country’s independence.
Through the National Museums and Monuments of Zimbabwe (NMMZ), the programme is targeting significant liberation war sites across the country, with Manama High School in Matabeleland South set to receive special recognition through a monument and a roll of honour for the more than 400 pupils who left the institution to join the armed struggle in January 1977.
The planned memorial will give permanent recognition to one of the most remarkable episodes of the liberation struggle, when hundreds of pupils abandoned their classrooms and embarked on a journey that would take them across the border into Botswana and, ultimately, to Zambia for military training.
The Manama exodus, which involved about 400 pupils as well as teachers and other school personnel, remains a defining chapter in the country’s liberation history and a powerful reminder of the role played by young people in the fight against colonial rule.
The initiative builds on Government’s ongoing efforts to identify, document, develop and protect liberation war heritage sites, ensuring that places associated with the struggle are not merely remembered through oral accounts and annual commemorations, but are physically preserved for posterity.
NMMZ Curator-Archaeology, Dr Senzeni Khumalo revealed that they had just finished works at Ratanyana Battle Site Museum and also another monument at Thekwane High School, revealing that their team will now be moving to Manama High School to complete the mounting of the monument and the roll of honour.
“We are combining Manama with the Zezane Assembly Point monument, our teams will be now moving to Manama where the designer is already working on the plaque with the roll of honour of the 400 that left the school to join the liberation struggle.
“At Thekwane High where we also had the entire school joining the liberation struggle we put up the panels and the monument but we had a challenge with the roll of honour hence we requested that the school looks for the records and once they have them, we will return to the school and mount a plaque with the roll of honour,” said Dr Khumalo.
Commenting on the Manama high monument, Education secretary of the Evangelical Catholic Church in Zimbabwe (Western Diocese) and former permanent secretary in the Ministry of Primary and Secondary Education, Mrs Tumisang Thabela, paid tribute to the government for the move, noting it will go a long way in honouring the children that marked a turning point in the armed struggle.
“As part of the preparations for 2026 Independence celebrations, the Department of National Museums and Monuments of Zimbabwe approached us as a school and church and told us that they are going to erect a field museum in memory of the children of valour, which is the children that left this school in 1977 and went straight to war, to the liberation struggle.
“So, as you saw in the arena where the field museum is going to be, they’ve already erected the pillars where the monument content will be displayed and we are glad as a responsible authority as a church that government has finally recognised the role that this school and the children from this school played in the fight for the liberation for Zimbabwe,” said Mrs Thabela.
She said the challenge now was for the completion of the monument and the mounting of the roll of honour.
“It would be a real honour for the church to have that chapter of the history of this school, the Matabeleland region and the church, where we will be officially recorded among all the history of Zimbabwe’s liberation struggle,” she said.
The Manama project forms part of a broader national heritage preservation effort covering sites associated with training and transit camps, battlefields, pungwe meetings, restriction camps and protected villages.
The NMMZ has previously overseen the development of liberation heritage sites, including the Battle of Chinhoyi site, while other memorial projects have included the Chibondo Memorial in Mt Darwin and Altena Farm in Centenary.
