Binga and Siabuwa communities celebrating better access to ICT

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Created: Monday, 02 May 2011 13:04

On Friday, 6th May 10 am at Siabuwa High School in Siabuwa, Binga, The school and community is set to officially receive a sixty panel solar power plant that will power up its computer lab while providing power for students and the community to study in the evenings. The solar panel installation will be handed over together with a clean drinking water plant at the school. This project was funded by Rotary Club Linz, working together with The Rotary Club Belmont and Rotary International and facilitated by Basilwizi Trust – Tonga.Online Project.

On Saturday, 7zh May, at the Binga Community Library in Binga, the local authority, Binga Rural District Council (BRDC) will officially receive a set of 15 computers with flat screens on behalf of the Binga Community. Running on Ubuntu Linux and networked, these computers form a Public Access Point (PAP) for the Binga Community for easier access to information and communication tools. Funded by Austria Zimbabwe Friendship Association and the Austrian Development Cooperation, the project was facilitated by Basilwizi Trust – Tonga.Online Project and BRDC.

Both events will showcase Ngoma ya Buntibe, a Tonga traditional dance that is unique to the BaTonga. It features a minimum of 30 -40 performers with 5 to 7 drums and a set of animal horns cut to different sizes, therefore, giving out different notes when blown. One man blows one horn, hence one note and, together, the set of horns, combined with the drums and the singing women with their Nsaka (rattles) gives a riveting performance that is best enjoyed not from ones seat, but from within the midst of the performers.

Basilwizi Trust ( www.basilwizi.org ) is a community development organization founded in 2002 by the local people of the Zambezi valley in the north-western part of Zimbabwe, as a demonstration of concern and determination by Zambezi valley communities to demand and restore the dignity taken from them by their displacement from the banks of the Zambezi River. Poverty, the main cause of vulnerability to food insecurity, is one of the defining features of the Zambezi valley, which districts rank least on the Zimbabwe development index even though they have great potential for advancement from the vast natural resources found in the region.  Basilwizi works to assist the communities of Binga, Gokwe North, Hwange and Nyaminyami administrative districts to realize their own development and emancipation from extreme poverty through community led interventions.