Art exhibition becomes annual event

Zimbabwean children living mostly inside the Central Methodist Church and attending St Albert School, under the sponsorship of the same church, held the exhibition in the school recently.

The three-day exhibition was sponsored by humanitarian organisations: Solidarity Peace Trust (SPT), GTZ SADC Peace, Security and Governance Programme, SADC Council of Non-governmental Organisations, and facilitated by the Central Methodist Church.

Members of the public got a chance to learn about the challenges facing Zimbabwean children, victims of a decade-long multi-facetted crisis that pushed them out of their home country.

The childrens journey

The exhibition, presented in a plethora of visuals and writings, follows the life of the Zimbabwean children, from the time the wheels came off an erstwhile cruising young African democracy in 1980, to the current failed state that not only fails to provide basics like education and health for its people, but has also turned against its citizens and terrorised them into fleeing in their droves.

From President Robert Mugabes notorious Gukurahundi massacres, in which the octogenarian leader killed an estimated 20 000 civilians in the Midlands and Matabeleland regions in the 1980s, to operation Murambatsvina and then the post March 29, 2008 harmonised elections, which saw Mugabe and his Zanu (PF) party losing to Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai and the his mainstream MDC, the exhibition relived it all.

It also relived in both poems and prose, the chilling accounts of events that the Zimbabwean minors went through while scaling the borders into neighbouring South Africa. Most of them, already traumatised by the political violence back home, were subjected to various forms of abuse by human traffickers, who sometimes raped them, or abused their parents along the way.

A daily struggle

Life on the dirty streets of Johannesburg, the daily struggle for survival among over 3 000 other refugees inside the Central Methodist Church in downtown Johannesburg, where they fight for basics, the daily threats of eviction by local authorities, harassment by members of the South African Police Service (SAPS) as well as memories and the ever growing threat of xenophobia, are also on display at the exhibition, where entry is free.

Some children recited poems which denounced xenophobia which they termed xeno-stupidity. Some told of police harassment, denial of basic rights by destroying their shelter and right to education, resulting in some sleeping in train stations.

Botswana-based professional artist, Goetz Berger, who voluntarily helped the children come up with the exhibition, told ***The Zimbabwean that it would now become a yearly feature.

Its aim is to raise awareness and deeper understanding and empathy among other communities. Children are highlighting their plight for the world to know, said Berger.

We will invite the South African public to come here and hear these stories from the children so that they will understand the plight of Zimbabweans and stop judging them harshly. When you understand someones problem, when you know where they are coming from, you cannot judge them rudely. Xenophobia came because there was a gap in both knowledge and wisdom among the South African public about the refugees and that is what we are trying to bridge by this exhibition.

A personal history

The Solidarity Peace Trust (SPT) said the exhibition was a Zimbabwean history and personal history, with its deputy director, Selvan Chetty adding that Zimbabweans, who have a lot of sad stories, got a chance to tell them through it.

Our work with Zimbabwean refugees began in 2005 after Speration Murambatsvina which displaced more than 700,000 and destroyed the livelihood of traders and vendors, said Chetty.

The SPT has been assisting the Central Methodist Church with, among other basics, food, school fees and uniforms for the children.

Before cutting the ribbon, the former Central Methodist Church, Dr Paul Verryn, who also runs the refugee centre at the church, praised the Zimbabwean children for remaining positive in face of their adversity.