In Ndebele they say, ''Ukungazi kufana lokufa", meaning that without information one is rendered powerless. As such being well informed gives one power by enhancing their knowledge. With the world slowly but surely turning into a global village, the need to be in touch with global trends becomes inevitable. However, keeping abreast poses a number of challenges for young Zimbabweans who still struggle with issues of access to information and communication technology.
In this global world of technology, employment vacancies, scholarships and opportunities for youth development are shared online. As such, young people who lag behind in terms of access to information technology miss out on such key opportunities, leaving a negative impact on their personal development.
It is against this background that the NYDT has taken the initiative to provide young people with access to information through different forms of media. The organisation runs a youth information centre that offers access to desktop and laptop computers that are connected to the internet, a television with DSTV subscription, daily and weekly newspapers as well as a number of books, newsletters and magazines. All services are available to the young people who are part of the 5 000 member database of the NYDT.
The internet facilities offered in the Information centre have enabled the youths to be exposed to the various opportunities far and beyond Zimbabwe. The internet has also seen to the sharing of information by the youth and with their peers all over the world thus helping to broaden their knowledge base, given the various social networking sites.
“I never had an interest in news or current affairs but ever since I started using the information centre I became interested because such information is readily available at the centre. I also find it amusing to be part of different discussions with my peers when I know I have a lot of information about the subject” said Mandy Chipendo, a regular user of the information centre.
The information centre has gone a long way in helping the youth keep abreast with the current affairs in Zimbabwe and all over the world. Given the various Newspapers, these have helped the youths to be in kept abreast with what is happening in Zimbabwe and in other countries. It has also facilitated the gathering of information even for academic purposes. To complement the information from the Newspapers for academic purposes are the books provided therein.
In addition, the Information centre offers a variety of youth friendly activities all aimed at mobilising young people to be proactive in dealing with various situations they are faced with on a day to day basis. These include Wednesday discussion series where they get to deliberate on various topical issues and Friday afternoon movie sessions which awards the youths an opportunity to draw lessons from fictional situations in movies.
However, there remains a challenge in providing such crucial services to a wider range of young people due to resource constraints. At the moment it is only those members who are in Bulawayo and can commute to the CBD that are able to access the information centre. It is however the aspiration of the NYDT that these services will be decentralized and youths will be able to access the information centres from within their locality.
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