Zimbabwe -- Cathy Buckle -- Dignify a sister

Letters from Cathy Buckle ^ | February 21, 2004 | Cathy Buckle

[Clive]

Dear Family and Friends,

When I dropped my son at school yesterday morning he said: "See you at lunch time Mum." "Lunch time, why what day is it?" I asked. Friday is a half day at school and it took an eleven year old boy to remind me what day it was. For the last 7 days I have spent 12 solid hours a day at my computer trying to answer an unstoppable tidal wave of emails from ordinary people wanting to help the women of Zimbabwe.

Thank you is such an inadequate phrase to express my gratitude for the overwhelming response to my letter last week about women's sanitary needs. Offers of help came from all over the world; from women and churches, groups and clubs and from scores of men too.

There were letters from fathers and grandfathers, doctors and priests. So many people have offered to help that it has filled me an overwhelming feeling of hope for our future here. One man said that my words had ignited a "chivalrous rage" within him.

How I wish that all of you who responded to my letter could have been here to see the reaction of a woman being given a small packet of sanitary towels this week. The woman's eyes shone with tears as I gave her the bag which she clutched to her chest and then she hugged me and said: "Oh thank you, God Bless you, now I can be clean again."

I must apologise for being so ill-prepared to cope with both the correspondence and logistics of what continues to grow into a vast mountain of support for ordinary women in Zimbabwe. A dedicated email address has been established and will be manned by volunteers to respond to and channel what has come to be known as the Dignify a Sister campaign. The address is: dignifyazister@yahoo.com .

It may take a couple of days for volunteers to cope with the backlog of mails that I have been physically unable to answer and have forwarded to Dignify A Zister but please do not let this labour of love go because every single packet of cotton wool and sanitary towels is wanted and desperately needed.

The volunteers organising Dignify A Zister will link offers of support with individual women and their sisters and daughters in Zimbabwe, provide addresses to send to and answer all the questions being asked.

This is not a political movement or an international organisation. It is just a way of letting ordinary people hold out the hand of friendship and give moral support to women who ask only for the dignity of cleanliness.

For almost four years I have been telling the story of how Zimbabwe has been turned upside down because of a political party's determination to stay in power. I have told of rape and torture, arson and murder. I have recorded how inflation grew from a teenager in 2000 to an insatiable monster which hit 624% in 2004 and how 4 years of political mayhem has left 8 out of every 10 people unemployed and almost 70% of our population dependant on world food aid in order to survive.

In these four years I have had many thousands of emails from people all over the world and almost always their question has been: What can we do to help? Dignify A Zister provides just one answer and on behalf of Zimbabwe's women, I thank the men for their chivalrous rage and the women for their sisterly love, compassion and empathy.

Until next week, with love, cathy.

[Clive]

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[Eagles2003]

I don't know where you found this, I was just getting ready to let you know it wasn't on the African Tears site. Luckily, this was the first post. I was a little concerned.

[Gatún(CraigIsaMangoTreeLawyer)]

Thank you once again for the interesting post.

[Gatún(CraigIsaMangoTreeLawyer)]

Gads, Speak, what is that? I have never seen anything like it.

[Gatún(CraigIsaMangoTreeLawyer)]

I see you just clocked in today; so better still, who are you?

[Khurkris]

Google is your friend.

Selous Scouts

A fine group of professional soldiers.

[Khurkris]

Nothing at all strange; more info:

Selous Scouts

[Lancey Howard]

This is from the web sire's HOMEPAGE:

Welcome to the SELOUS SCOUTS, once the most feared counter-insurgency force on the African continent.

During the course of the war the Selous Scout were officially credited with either directly or indirectly being responsible for 68% of all terrorist killed, while losing less than 40 scouts in the process.

With this site I tried to obtain as much information on the scouts to give the reader hopefully clear idea of who and what the scouts were and what they were fighting for in an around the former country of Rhodesia.

In putting this site together there is a lot of general information on many facets of this counter-insurgency conflict, so it truly becomes a site of not just the Selous Scouts but also a Rhodesian interest site.

This site should be helpful for some, due to the fact in some African countries information on the Selous Scouts and the Rhodesian/Zimbabwe War of Independence (Chimurenga War, 1966-1980) was or is BANNED!

This site is still in the working and as I find and obtain more information on the scouts, I will continually update the site as needed.

Well enjoy the site and don't forget to sign the guest book and let me know what you think.

[Lancey Howard]

Note: That last line is also from the site. It is NOT an invitation from me, Lancey Howard. Thank you.

[Gatún(CraigIsaMangoTreeLawyer)]

Thank you for the information. I never heard of these guys until now. It's unbelievable.

[Clive]

Pamwe Chete

[cyborg]

Why don't you ask a Freeper who IS one? :)

[Khurkris]

Something that may be of interest...

SOE in the East

Some interesting stories.

[swampfox98]

How many billions is America giving the UN to upgrade its buildings, and then the UN lets a situation like this go on? As long as a murdering, raping tyrant is black, he is their tyrant and they are going to protect him, and ignore the needs of the poor people. What a waste the UN is.

[cyborg]

Freeper Selous is. Maybe he will post a response.