Given how reliant children are on the health care system, when hospitals are closed or only deemed good for the elite, with high costs for children needing assistance or for women who need assistance to deliver their children, it means that they face the brunt of a lot of the crises that are occurring. Also, any single-parent mothers may be unable to find employment because of the high unemployment rate. They might be in rural communities where they are forced to make good with whatever resources they're given, whether that is having to renounce any political affiliations or having to use a bucket of sewage water to keep their children clean and reuse it to cook their meals and to maintain their household.
We feel that if the Canadian government partnered with UNWFP to expand the program that currently assists those 20 regions and those 550,000 Zimbabweans we mentioned, it would take a large burden off these women and children, who might be in single-parent homes or dual-parent homes, and it would allow them to focus on meeting other basic needs they might have.
Another topic that we weren't able to touch on, unfortunately, was electricity. About 40% of all Zimbabwe communities receives electricity; another 60% doesn't receive any electricity at all. The 40% that do receive it are subjected to 18 hours a day of load shedding, and when electricity does return to these homes, children and families must rise and make their meals for the day and children must complete any schoolwork they have. This is usually at 3 or 4 a.m., and only for about an hour. Zimbabwe is part of the Southern African Power Pool, and we feel if the Canadian government were to condemn Zimbabwe for not meeting the objectives of the Southern African Power Pool—which does include sustainable development, providing reliable and efficient electricity and providing electricity to those rural communities—just that condemnation would be enough, or would start something great. Zimbabwe would feel that the international community was keeping an eye on the goings-on of the nation to ensure all civilians were receiving the basic necessities.
Thank you.