05 October 2011
Speech presented by Tabani Moyo (Quill Club Secretary General) on the occasion of handing over the Zimbabwe Somalia Solidarity Fund to UNICEF
The UNICEF Representatives,
Quill Club Executive members
Members of the press
Ladies and gentlemen,
I would like to thank colleagues at UNICEF Zimbabwe offices for according us this opportunity to handover our humble contributions in our efforts to respond to crying voices in the Republic of Somalia. We engaged with the Harare office for quite some time for this day to become a reality. On behalf of the Quill Club, we appreciate the role you are going to play in handing over this donation to the beneficiaries.
Ladies and gentlemen,
On the 22nd of July 2011, the National Press club, having been touched by the broadcasts and pictures exposed in the international media launched a week’s campaign targeting to raise USD 1000.00 under the banner Zimbabwe-Somalia Solidarity Fund
The initiative, as you might be aware became the first one of such a nature in Zimbabwe. As such we are proud to be the pioneering institution to publicly mobilise the people of Zimbabwe towards a such a noble cause of saving lives.
The inspiration is founded in the comprehensive notion of African solidarity. We come from the background that we take care of each other. If our brother or sister is struck by such a natural calamity through our solidarity we must act.
At no given point in our collective lives have we reneged from this notion, which is entrenched on the pedestal that life is sacrosanct and we as Africans should collectively uphold such a value system. With this campaign, we therefore answered to more than 9.6million peoples’ cry for help in the adverse face of famine in Somalia to express our solidarity beyond spiritual, thought, empathy and sympathy to economic and humanitarian solidarity.
We as Africans can not find restful and peaceful nights when we are aware that the vultures await to patch at shallow graves of victims of hunger. As we serve dishes of lunch and dinner at our respectful homes we need to remain alive to the fact that a child is buried daily in Somalia due to starvation, dehydration and failure to access medication. As I said, as Africans we are bound by the spirit of Ubuntu, which prescribes that we are each other’s keepers as brothers and sisters therefore with this statement of commitment to the same we seek to raise a new sense of hope to the people of Somalia.
As each other’s keepers, we surely must be haunted by the devastating pictures and video footage of the humiliating suffering which continues to haunt more than 360 000 children and the starvation of the general populace of up to 9 million people.
Therefore our nights can only be nights punctuated by nightmares in light of such gruesome conditions of degrading starvation. The sight of children getting permanently disabled due to limited supply of food and water can only but exacerbate the nightmares on fellow Africans and the peoples of the world.
Neither can our souls find peace for as long as children die of mosquito bites due to limited access to blanketing and other clothing requirements. Such suffrage corrodes the development of our human progression and our value system, which differentiate humanity from the rest of the animal world.
The very same spirit of solidarity which was shared amongst the peoples of Africa in dislodging the colonial administrations in the respective nations from Cape to Cairo has not left us as a people. It is the very same spirit which has inspired this group of journalists to make this humble contribution.
With this small donation, we are hopeful that we have set in motion a national process of solidarity from business, the churches, the various sectors of our economy and the polity to name but just a few. We therefore believe this process shall among other things manage to achieve the following:
· Trigger into motion other institutions to remember and assist the people of Somalia during this trying time
· Escalate the Somalia humanitarian disaster to unlock additional areas of interventions
· Increase awareness on the need for solidarity amongst Africans in both times of trying and triumph,
· And ultimately save lives in Somalia
Ladies and Gentlemen,
Having noted the above, the Quill Club, whose membership is mainly of journalists remain forever indebted with this expression of solidarity from fellow journalists, members of the civil society, the business community and the general public who through their contributions shall make a difference. Special thanks go to the UNICEF Zimbabwe office for accepting to receive our humble contribution on behalf of the Children of Somalia.
Finally, we would like the people of Somalia to know that as we hand over this donation, we are doing so with sadness for we could have done better. We are doing so knowing very much that this is like going to bed with an unfinished song, yet we know the fully well the pains of such a song. Theirs is a song of sorrow; the hymns of human lose and choruses that threaten humanity.
With those few remarks,
I thank you.
