ZDDT Councillor of the Month: Cllr Thembeni Khoza; an unrelenting zeal to respond and assist
Being one of the 3 female Bulawayo councillors, Khoza has consolidated the ideals of all groups in her Ward to come up with decisions that are beneficial to all, in one way or the other.
“When I was elected to office, I taught myself that we, at Ward 12, are a huge family and therefore anyone who is older than me is either my mother, father, brother or sister and everyone younger than me is either my young brother, sister or child. This has helped us to bond well; hence there has never been any tension during my tenure of office,” said Cllr Khoza.
As this News Correspondent was at the Councillor’s home, conducting this interview, she received numerous phone calls as her constituents continually called to seek assistance and counsel in varying life aspects. What intrigued this correspondent is the Councillor’s unrelenting zeal to respond and assist in any manner possible.
Cllr Khoza has also exhibited high levels of Servant Leadership and she delegates well in order for developmental, and other work in the Ward, to progress smoothly and swiftly. For instance, during the time of the interview, she had already assigned one of her CAT members to go and book the community hall in preparation for a Residents Feedback Meeting, which was scheduled for the approaching Sunday.
She said she utilises these monthly meetings to get in touch with the community, to hear their concerns, grievances and recommendations and also to give them feedback on what is being deliberated on and done at the Local Authority (LA). In a nutshell, she uses this assembly as a podium of exchange of ideas and herself as a medium of effective communication between the community and the LA.
Ward 12 is one of the oldest townships in the city and is therefore mostly composed of old people, who can no longer fend for themselves. This population composition has seen Cllr Khoza going out to the civil society to seek assistance for the old aged and their grandchildren, who are mostly HIV/AIDS orphans.
“To address the issue of poverty among the residents in my Ward, I approached the City Council and numerous charitable organisations for assistance. This paid well as the Council allocated us pieces of virgin land, within the Ward, in which to practice horticulture and feed the aged and the vulnerable. We now have a number of nutritional gardens and we would like to thank Non Governmental Organisations (Civil Society Organisations) such as ZDDT for coming in to help us administer these gardens,” she said.
Her ascension to Councillorship coincided with the inception of ZDDT and she immediately embraced the Trust’s interventions, a development that spearheaded Community Restoration and healing among the constituents who were recovering from the country’s economic slumber and political mayhem that had preceded the 2008 elections.
ZDDT introduced cleaning campaigns, tree planting and after-care programmes (The Urban Greening Initiative) and the training of Councillors and Community Action Teams in Servant Leadership. Cllr Khoza utilized these initiatives and interventions to cultivate a culture of love, tolerance and living together in her community members. She managed to integrate people regardless of their socio-political-religious and ethnic persuasion; hence they now work collectively with the sole goal of restoring their beloved Ward.
To attest the truthfulness of these words, Cllr Khoza recently won an accolade from another Civil Organisation, Gender Links. She, and her Ward, received the award for excelling in the “Climate Change and Sustainable Development Category”, in recognition of their collective outstanding contribution to promoting the realisation of development with a bias towards gender equality in society.
“I went to Kadoma recently, to attend the Gender Links annual convention and I won an award. If was not for ZDDT and the community work that we conduct together, I would not have won this prestigious ward. This is the second time for me to win an award from Genderlinks; Last year I won another one. What happens is that I go to the ZDDT offices and ask for all the photographs shot by Ntando (ZDDT News Correspondent) and compile them to present all my Ward’s work to Gender Links and that is how I won the award. I therefore urge the rest of the Councillors to do the same so that the whole country and SADC region can see ZDDT,” she said ecstatically in front of multitudes during a Sebenzela Celebration recently.
The subject of awards is not alien to Cllr Khoza, as she has been decorated with numerous accolades by the Trust itself. In the first quarter of this year, she received the Urban Greening Initiative Award, as her Ward’s park excelled and the trees are growing tremendously well despite water shortages and other challenges linked to the weather.
She says that she approached Gender Links with the hope of properly and respectfully addressing the issue of gender based violence and inequalities that plagued her community. She felt that not enough was being done to bring the girl child to be at par with her male counterpart, and therefore diminishing her chances of succeeding in life.
Cllr Khoza thanked the Civil Society for showing unrelenting support to the Local Authority (LA), saying that, if not, it (the LA) would not be in a position to render any meaningful services to its clients; the residents.
“We are grateful to the Non Governmental Organisations for their assistance. For example, the Leadership Trainings that were conducted by ZDDT are very helpful because I can now properly plan and manage my Ward, due to these trainings. I would like to thank the City Council for agreeing to work with ZDDT as this opened a window of opportunities for us, as Councillors, and residents at large,” she said.