Bulawayo female waste pickers operating at Bulawayo's Richmond Landfill Site (popularly known as Ngozi Mine) have taken a bold stand to defend their rights by mobilizing other waste pickers and nonviolently boycotting selling their stuff for a pittance. On Thursday 02 June 2022, some female waste pickers mobilized other waste pickers (both male and female)... Continue Reading →

Matabeleland Institute for Human Rights (MIHR) appreciates the holding of the High Level InterMinisterial Indaba on Lake Gwayi-Shangani being convened by the Ministry of Lands, Agriculture, Water, Fisheries and Rural Development in Hwange on Friday 03 June 2022. We thus implore the High Level Indaba to abide by the tenants of Constitutionalism and formulate a... Continue Reading →

On the 20th of May 2022, female representatives of the Bulawayo Waste Pickers Association attended a Parliamentary Public Hearing convened by the Parliamentary Portfolio Committee on Women's Affairs and SMEs on the Women's Empowerment of the Women Microfinance bank since its inception. The meeting was an opportune platform for the waste pickers to interface with... Continue Reading →

"Knowledge is power" is an old aged adage which has lost meaning and relevance to many in Zimbabwe especially at a this time of the Kiyakiya economy where the learned are pushed to the doldrums of poverty and the hustlers are better off. However, in the month April and May 2022, Matabeleland Institute for Human... Continue Reading →

(ZHRC Meeting with Pumula Female waste Pickers) In pursuit of access to justice for the marginalized and disadvantaged sectors of society, Matabeleland Institute for Human Rights facilitated space for the Zimbabwe Human Rights Commission (ZHRC) to engage with Bulawayo female waste pickers in Pumula and Ngozi Mine area. The waste pickers are organized under the... Continue Reading →

(Cartridge collected in scene - picture courtesy of local citizens) On Saturday 30 April 2022, Matabeleland Institute for Human Rights (MIHR) received a report of Council rangers allegedly shooting a young man at St Peters Village in peri-urban Bulawayo ward 17 on the morning of the same day (Saturday) over a beer change dispute. The... Continue Reading →

Like the biblical parable traveler who was robbed, stripped, beaten and left by the road side to die, only to be saved by a societal underdog - a samaritan passerby, the City of Bulawayo's solid waste management nightmare is being ameliorated by the poor, marginalized, unrecognized and often discriminated upon waste pickers. Between the month... Continue Reading →

Small holder farmers in peri-urban Bulawayo ward 17 community are still counting their loses due to climate change induced drought that scotched all their field crops leaving them food insecure and dependent on food aid. When news reached the farmers in November 2021 that Zimbabwe is going to expirienced an above normal and extended rainy... Continue Reading →

(Hon Nicola Watson and representatives of NPRC, ZHRC and ZGC receive the Submission Paper from a community leader) Sixteen Community Based Organizations (CBOs) from across the country representing various ethnic, linguistic and geographic minority communities have endorsed a policy submission paper calling on the government of Zimbabwe to enact an inclusive and human rights based... Continue Reading →

Today (01 March 2022) Matabeleland Institute for Human Rights (MIHR) joins the progressive world in commemorating the 2022 International Waste Pickers Day, which is a global commemorative day set to recognize the efforts of waste pickers and to focus on the challenges they are facing in their livelihood enterprise. As we commemorate the International Waste... Continue Reading →