Dear reader,

It’s our birthday!

It’s been twelve months since we launched, a proud and happy milestone for the Harare News team. This also makes it a great time to announce that we are doubling our print run to 20,000 copies and are reaching more people than ever in Mbare, Dzivarasekwa, Mabvuku, Tafara and Kuwadzana. We welcome our new readers to the pages of Harare News and look forward to engaging with you about the issues in your neighbourhoods.

It hasn’t been an easy year. Not for us, not for anybody. Business is bad in all sectors, and our fledgling community newspaper has had to jump through several wildly flaming hoops to survive.

It is only by revisiting our mission statement that we grow ever firmer in our resolve to provide news and information to promote the improvement of our city, our lives.

Zimbabwe has been a tough place to live in the past years. People’s outlook has shifted from looking to the future into day-to-day survival mode. The consequences of this are manifold. Long term thinking and planning has been replaced with short term hustling. Issues such as the environment and infrastructure development, issues that will impact future generations to whom we leave Harare after we are all gone, have slipped down our collective agenda.

Even the collective agenda, our vision as a society so to speak has been eroded. Our complex and difficult political and economic circumstances have reduced us to individuals. We have stopped questioning how we behave in the public sphere. Littering is rampant, driving is terrible, neighbours burn rubbish, and profiteers grab vital wetlands for development or drain our water table for a quick dollar.

Hopelessness is a terrible thing.  However it’s not part of the Harare News agenda! We believe in Harare and the citizens that will build her up once again. Our encounters with you, the Sunshine City residents, have filled us with hope. The arts scene is as vibrant as it has ever been, our students are flying high, creating, dreaming, and building. We are seeing a community-level renaissance happening with networks of motivated, positive residents being born and growing in number and scope. There are heroes aplenty too, people who are making a difference and are deserving of support.

It is with this in mind that we move into our second year and, though still in our infancy, do so with excitement and happiness.

From the desk of the editor, I wish to thank enormously the hard working and passionate team at Harare News: the journalists, photographers and community contributors, the tireless admin staff, the distribution team and our very talented designer.

We also extend our huge gratitude to the advertisers who have shown their support of a fledgling project. In doing so, we believe they have given something back to the communities in which they exist.

And of course thank you to you the readers who pick up Harare News, read it and share it. And to those of you who engage with the articles or with us through letters and feedback. Please keep it up – it’s the reason we are here!

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