isolated areas, which a random survey might miss. It is equally possible that it had happened in known dangerous areas, which had been avoided as far as possible in fieldwork.10 4.4 The ‘story’ of experiences of the COPAC process The survey context of COPAC participation is therefore that a total of 74% of Zimbabweans report that they have heard of the Constitution of Zimbabwe ([Q19]; 72% have heard of the constitution-making process that is rolling out in contemporary Zimbabwe [Q22]; 24% of the total sample had attended a COPAC constitutional outreach meeting [Q22C]; and 93% of those who had attended a COPAC outreach meeting, reported that they had done so out of free will – as opposed to having done so due to wishing ‘not to anger’ other persons [Q22B]. The rest of this ‘story’ of attendance of and participation in the COPAC outreach meetings includes that 55% of those who had attended the meetings reported that they had spoken at the meeting [Q22C]. News of the COPAC outreach meetings The COPAC meeting participants (288 or 24% of the total sample) reported a wide range of sources where they had first heard of the meetings [Q22L]. The four dominant sources were traditional leaders (68 mentions; politically often strongly associated with ZANU-PF), neighbours (44 mentions), radio (37 mentions (Q70A shows state radio has by far the deepest reach into Zimbabwe), ZANU-PF structures (37 mentions), schools (24 mentions) and MDC-T structures (13 mentions). Hence, it was ZANU-PF and its associated structures that appeared to dominate the dissemination of information of the COPAC outreach meetings. About one in seven survey respondents who had attended the COPAC meetings reported that they had received civic education on constitutional matters prior to their COPAC engagement [Q22J; see above]. In addition, one in every three COPAC participants had enjoyed constitutional discussions beyond the COPAC process [Q22M]. The predominant ‘neighbour’ form of constitutional exchanges was equally evident in urban and rural areas [Q22N]. Of the 86 cases of respondents reporting having had discussions about the constitutional process, 57 were with neighbours. All other mentions were of a frequency of lower than 20. The respondents that reported having had access to such exchanges were concentrated in the Harare, Midlands, Matabeleland North and Matabeleland South provinces. Civil society workshops represented only a fraction of these engagements. It was far more likely that these constitutionally-active citizens had informative exchanges with their neighbours (by far the predominant informal source). Small numbers cited the main political parties, traditional leaders, schools and the church as forums in which they had discussed the emerging constitution [Q22N]. 10 In a comparable Afrobarometer survey (also with fieldwork by MPOI, October 2010) only 4.7% of respondents reported either having been prevented from attending an outreach meeting, or expressing their views. 40