by Mugove A. Chisvo
In the pictures above is a genius innovation. The two youths that I’m with, i.e. Emmanuel Raini (20) and Phillip Kambila (18) from Kuwadzana made their own electricity generator that doesn’t use fuel. They substituted the fuel engine with an electro magnetic engine and a 12V battery which charges automatically as the generator runs. These two out of school youths have both neither had the chance nor the funds to further their education at institutions of higher learning thus they spent much of their time collecting scraps and parts of dead tv sets, radios etc with the goal of putting their own innovation into life. Furthermore they never did sciences in high school but they had a passion for electronics and mechanics at a very early age. Their talents were never recognized during their school years but they pursued their passion nonetheless and they are doing a good job! This is the right type of mindset I like to see! We have offered at our office to support them and help them launch the product and market it and make it viable by engaging other partners that can be of assistance.
Often as a country we are found crafting complicated frameworks to address the basic societal challenges that we face. We want to look far and wide for solutions. We always look to import even the basic necessities that we need. However youths like these bear clear testimony that we have solutions from within! Many youths have come up with interventions and innovations that create solutions to the problems that we are facing, however due to lack of support (through technical assistance/ resource mobilization) and mentorship they have just gone,down the drain. We still find ourselves wanting and are still over reliant on other countries to solve our own challenges. This should change!
Let us support youth innovations across the board. Earlier on in the week I spoke of the imperativeness of promoting youth ideas through hubs and expanding the curricular so as to identify and nature youth innovations as opposed to decades of learning theories which are usually inapplicable in real life. Let me reiterate that youth innovations are there! Ideas are there within Zim, that is why we rank amongst the most educated globally! Let us translate our high education levels into positive societal outcomes. This can be achieved through deliberately promoting innovations that will go a long way in offering viable solutions. These young men have inspired me!
