Minister challenges the Church on Healing, Reconciliation and Integration.

Information Department

Zimbabwean Church leaders have been challenged to take a leading and influential role in the quest to achieve healing, reconciliation and integration in the country as well as help to develop a road map for healing.

This challenge was made by the Minister of National Healing, Reconciliation and Integration Honourable Moses Mzila Ndlovu at a Think Tank session held at Habakkuk Trust’s UMkhankaso Centre today. The meeting that was attended by Church leaders and Christian organisations was aimed at giving the Christian community an opportunity to interact with the Ministry of National Healing as well as influence key issues of healing affecting Matabeleland and Zimbabwe at large.

‘As the Ministry we are more of listeners than implementers and we expect the Church to stand up for the broader society and in turn we will take seriously your contributions on how we should work’, reiterated the Minister.

The major advocacy issues that came out of the meeting include:

- The need to review legislation to cater for the victims of Gukurahundi,
- The need to accord the people an opportunity to articulate their own expectations of how the healing process should be done.
- The need for the Churches to actively participate on issues of reconciliation and rehabilitation,
- Peace committees to lay a foundation for national healing,
- The Church should participate in the All stakeholders conference to be convened by the Ministry,
- Perpetrators of violence to stand up and say what wrongs they did and seek forgiveness,
- The need for people to speak out on injustices and lack of accountability
- The need to break the ethnic divide.

The Think Tank meeting is part of a series of Sector Think Tanks that Habakkuk Trust is hosting in order to influence policy making and development in the country. Last week, the organisation has hosted a think tank on the mining and extractive sector.