Loziba festival kicks off

Millicent Andile Dube, Showbiz reporter

The Loziba festival kicked off its first installment of the year’s edition at Pumula North Hall yesterday.

Running under the theme ‘Arts addressing violence against women and girls and mental health issues.

The first segment of the Loziba festival was the ‘Young women’s luncheon’ with Councilor Sikhululekile Moyo.

The agenda surrounding the luncheon was to give young women a free space to be educated and be able to converse without any boundaries about everyday issues that affect their lives.

In the opening statement Councilor Sikhululekile Moyo welcomed all the residents that took time to attend this event and shared the detailed agenda of the women’s luncheon.

“We have taken time as the Council to arrange a safe space where women can freely address their concerns as the future residents of Pumula North and see how the girl child can be improved in terms of digital innovation”, she said.

In attendance was Mrs Bhebhe and Mrs Nxumalo of ward 17 representatives from the Child protection society. The Accounting manager from Bulawayo City Council Mr Ndlovu came through to address the billing system.

The first issue to be addressed was sewage bursts and drainage blockages that have become a huge problem in Pumula North. Back door abortion was the one issue that has caused a lot of sewage bursts. Still born bodies or premature baby bodies have been found in the drainage pipes.

The area is now overcrowded and the original drainage systems cannot behold the number of people using the structures. Water crises was also another factor that brought up that in other areas they have reached three weeks without any water supply despite that the residents continue using the toilets resulting in the latrines being over soiled with unflushed human waste.

The second issue to be tackled was that of drug and substance abuse amongst young women. The number of females using drugs is still growing but what stood out is that most of the drug suppliers or distributors are women.

Young women were identified to be the ones in the forerun in circulating the illegal drugs to the men.

Home made drugs from unsuspected groceries such as Mazoe, Cerevita, Geisha, disposable diapers and sanitary pads as well as gas meant for gas stove are the most common ingredients used to cook up drugs.

A representee from the Peer Trust fund Ms Ayanda Dabengwa also addressed other issues related to drug and substance abuse.

“Women are also suspects who have been sidelined in issues such as drug usage. Number of times women ask for the prep pill which its medical use is to prevent one from contracting HIV but they will use it to create drugs or they sometimes use the family planning control pills.

Therefore they have since stopped freely giving out family planning pills or other methods. Instead, they give out referrals to certain centers that do a thorough background check of the patients before they are assisted freely.

The peer trust fund was created to give the youth, young educators, the ability to freely communicate without fear of the age gap or judgmental critics.

Mr Ndlovu from the Bulawayo City Council also gave a detailed explanation on the billing system that has affected most of the residents in the city.

“Residents should be aware that each house is given 450litres of water each day and that comes with a consumption charge. Therefore, from the given water load if one exceeds their limit extra charges apply,” he said.

Other factors that affect the increase of water charges are water leakages, no reading meters as well the land used determines the bill. This means that the bigger the building the more chargers will occur.

Estimation is also another method that the City Council has adopted when billing out in which the by laws gives them full rights to do so. They estimate using the last meter reading and the current meter or month dividing it with the bank rate of that particular day. However, residents are allowed to go to the main officers to address the queries.

The estimation strategy is used because the City Council cannot do an everyday or monthly meter reading in the whole of Bulawayo at once.

The young women of Pumula spent the whole day being educated on motherhood, how best to adopt art skills to become entrepreneurs and also grow the girl child by being each other’s mentor.