Crisis in Zimbabwe Coalition coordinating committee meeting held in Harare today was attended by various CSOs as a build up towards a national convergence on the Zimbabwean crisis set for December.

Consultative meetings have also been held in Manicaland, Masvingo and Bulawayo provinces.

The coalition also made a call to all CSOs in Zimbabwe to reconsider their relevance and to speak with one voice in order to deliver meaningful transformation to the country.

Briefing delegates at a critical meeting, Crisis in Zimbabwe coalition Past President, Mfundo Mlilo said that the CSOs need to appreciate the various obstacles that come with social change and transformation in conscientising the public.

“It is necessary to transform the people through meaningful education because most Zimbabweans still trivialise. For instance, you find people making jokes out of the corruption which is rampant in government and this speaks volumes about the behavior and belief of the people.

“It is about the behavior of trivializing the death of the nation and not knowing how you are affected hence CSOs need to change behavior and shift the mindset of political leaders,” he said.

Mlilo bemoaned the fact that the country is on the brinks of collapse yet most people seem not to be aware of such realities.

He urged CSOs to form a powerful coalition and work towards providing civic education to the people and political parties in Zimbabwe.

“The civic society had a powerful middle class leadership made up of the academia in the year 2000 epoch and such traits have vanished as the trend in most CSOs is that they are led by salaried staff members .This reality begs the question of where really we are going,” said Mlilo.

He noted that the CSOs were letting down the country   because they were pursuing wrong ideological principles since there is diversion from civil and constitutional issues to social and economic trends which challenge the state.

Mlilo added that the failure to understand the challenges we are facing as a nation misdirects the entire struggle while pointing out the need to resuscitate alliances with political parties.

He also reiterated the need to divorce CSOs from associating with common faces and organisations all the times and urged them to consider working with common people within the communities.

Also addressing the delegates, Patson Dzamara echoed the need to go to the people in the rural communities.

“The state machinery has done everything to infiltrate the social movements in the country and it is time to make meaningful reflections,” he said.

He hinted that it was time to take action in sensitizing Zimbabweans and bring all political parties together as they are disconnected from the people.

Crisis in Zimbabwe Coalition came into being in 2001. It is a conglomeration of more than 80 civil society organizations in Zimbabwe working together to bring about democratic change in the country. Its membership draws from churches, women’s groups social movements, residents associations, labour unions, human rights lawyers, teachers groups and health professionals.