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Pardon Gotora Correspondent

Shelter is a basic human right as enshrined in the Constitution of Zimbabwe. Being a basic right, it is only logical that the size and standard of the house should bestow human dignity.

Dignity comes when there is a basic minimum sleeping space that caters for all gender requirements.

Before the adoption of the new curriculum, my Grade Three teacher back in the late 1980s taught me that boys sleep in the boys’ bedroom (gota), while girls sleep in girls’ bedroom (nhanga).

It was easier for me to appreciate because back then, there were several round huts dotted around the homestead and we never struggled for sleeping space, even if there were visitors.

You would only sleep in the kitchen when, as a young and adventurous teen, you came back home in the wee hours after sneaking out at night.

The doors were locked from inside for all the other bedrooms.

The kitchen was always open, and since you would not have blankets, you could just warm yourself from the log that burnt throughout the night. The transition from rural to urban opened a Pandora’s box for me.

People slept in any little space at their disposal, be it in the kitchen, dining, lounge or even some children of opposite sex sharing bedrooms.

When sleeping in the lounge-cum-dining, you have no luxury of waking up late in the day. Other competing demands for the same space forced you to wake-up early.

You also need to summon the reflexes of sleeping while some people are still watching the football games that finish deep into the night, failure of which you might have to sleep for five hours.

You then envisage the basic houses provided in the market, you ask yourself, are we planning housing with human dignity in mind, or we are zooming in on the quick returns and the comfort drawn from the number of housing units delivered.

Or we are concentrating on “affordability”, which in my view is a relative term. The culprits come from all sectors, the public sector, the private sector, the civic societies and even individual home owners who have joined the band wagon.

The current minimum house sold to a home-seeker is a one-roomed wet core house on a 150m² or 200m² or 300m² stand. The Government and building societies are the major actors on this model. From there, you also have one-bedroomed and two-bedroomed houses which happen to be the standard.

The majority of the flats built by the Government are two-bedroomed, with a kitchen, a combined lounge/dining and a toilet. Not to be outdone, people are jostling to get a residential stand so that they build their own home.

The first structure to be erected is a one or two-roomed cottage and the family moves in, since it is perceived as a relief from nagging landlords.

In Zimbabwe, using an average family of a father, mother and two children, assuming the children are of opposite sex, it means we would require the master bedroom for the parents (this is non-negotiable), the girls bedroom and the boys bedroom.

This gives us a three-bedroomed house. In this instance, I have not even incorporated the extended family and helpers in the matrix. With a one-roomed house, it means we have a deficit of two more sleeping spaces already without factoring in the kitchen and lounge-cum-dining.

The situation looks abated when children are toddlers.

However, in the event that these children are school-going, already there is a challenge because they are exposed to a lot of social and biological dynamics.

One begins to grapple with the question, should opposite-sex children continue to share bedrooms and for how long? There is an unwritten golden rule that parents should monitor the development of their children. It is much easier said than done given that most parents hustle to make a living.

The reality is that by the time these children reach puberty, or even earlier, it will be much more difficult for them to feel comfortable sharing a room.

In as much as it creates a bond and a sense of sharing among your children, nature will call for privacy.

The need for privacy and space should be respected as much as possible. But how is that possible when, as a country, we are determined to provide one-roomed core houses? The rule of thumb is that, people have basic shelter to use as a spring board and is meant to be affordable given that there is not much expended on developing the full house.

The only cost value chain considered is monetary, in terms of cement, bricks, asbestos and windows.

How much does it cost for one to be accorded dignity? People underestimate the burden that these new home owners go through when they have just moved into that room. The first nightmare comes when there are visitors from the village.

The breadwinner has numerous sleepless nights as she tries to juggle between loan repayments, extending the house, feeding the family and finding sleeping space for the visitors.

In the end, depression becomes gets the better of her. By the time she finishes extending the house or paying the mortgage, the body succumbs to mental overload. Civic society and law enforcers are busy trying to reduce the number of sexual abuses. But it seems they are fighting a lone battles without permissive environment to complement that drive.

Vision 2030 talks of an upper middle income economy by 2030.

For as long as there are people sleeping in the kitchen or lounge or children of opposite sex sharing bedrooms by 2030, it means we more will need to be done in developing the housing sector.

In view of the foregoing, what then should be the minimum standard size of a house allocated or sold to a home seeker?

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