5. Civil Society Dissemination and Validation Meetings 5.1 Age and risk aversion 5.1.1 Young people Young people especially graduates were viewed as risk averse and disinterested in political issues around them. Some participants lamented the “dilution of youth interest in politics” and posited that in the past the youth were the bedrock of politics though student activism but now even student activism in on the decline. Others explained youth risk aversion to the youth having “not seen the other side of life”, “having no history”. Essentially saying the youth have not tasted how good things were in the past and thus, have no motivation to risk their limbs clamouring for a restoration of a working economy because they have never seen it working. Others in support of this notion asserted that young people have no motivation to take risks because they have very few things to worry about especially those still living with parents and cannot see the better horizon. Others went further to suggest that the youth are gullible and not motivated to take risks because they look at immediate gains hence, once their immediate needs are satisfied they disengage for example those who got stands via the party. Such youths were viewed as short-sighted and only focused on waiting for an opportune time to reap rewards from their investment of time, money and effort in education “when things are sorted out”. They hoped to get goo paying jobs when the economy became functional again but were not willing to risk getting injured in the process of protesting and demonstrating against the government. Other participants believed that youthful risk aversion could be explained through understanding the role played by religion in inducing passivity among young people. They held the view that religion made people passive and less concerned with rectifying governance challenges in the present time with people being content that God is in control and that things will eventually be rectified, hence taking risks now was of no benefit. Proponents of this view called for “a balanced theology” which made people aware of the conditions of their existence now and gave them realistic expectations of the future and the motivations to utilise their agency now to shape that future. Another thought thread believed that some young people were risk averse because they “had trust and faith in the system” hence even though some could participate in demonstrations and protests once in a while, they would not be bothered to vote to choose leaders in government. According to this view, young people’s risk aversion was due to a genuine belief that the government was crippled by sanctions and external forces, especially rural youth. Some participants questioned the accuracy of the paper and highlighted this “failure” to show risk taking trends by age and residence to show risk taking by young people in the urban areas and young people in rural areas. Another thought strand postulated that most young people are easily swayed by ZANU-PF promises of jobs for example the 2.2 million jobs promise made by president Mugabe in the run-up to the last presidential election in 2013. 5.1.2 The elderly Across the four sites, participants generally concurred with the older people’s risk taking trends as claimed by the paper. Many felt that older people were increasingly becoming more risk taking because they faced the burden of providing for their families/households and thus were dissatisfied with the government and this manifested in their risk taking behaviour. The older people felt let down by the government more than the young generations because the older ones had experiences of a functioning economy, they knew and understood that with 13