| |
Back to Index
GCN
nominated for the world's most respected award for the rights
of the child
Childrensworld.org
January 15, 2007
This year's three finalists for the World's Children's
Prize for the Rights of the Child (WCPRC), with prize money totalling
SEK 1 million (USD 140,000) are:
- CYNTHIA
MAUNG, Burma, who has fought for the health and education of hundreds
of thousands of refugee children for 20 years, both under the
military dictatorship in Burma and in refugee camps in Thailand.
- INDERJIT
KHURANA, India, who has run over a hundred schools and two phone
help lines for 21 years, helping the poorest, most vulnerable
children who live and work on station platforms.
- BETTY
MAKONI, Zimbabwe. After being abused as a child, Betty began
to fight to give girls the courage to demand their rights. She
supports those who are exposed to abuse and protects others from
assault, forced marriage, trafficking and sexual abuse.
This year's
prize ceremony will be held on 16 April at Gripsholm Castle in Mariefred,
where HM Queen Silvia will help the children to give out the prizes.
All three final candidates will be honoured. The recipients of the
prizes will be announced at a press conference at 12 noon on 13
April, at Södra Teatern, Mosebacke Torg, Stockholm, Sweden.
More
about Betty Makoni and her Gild Child Network
Betty Makoni is a survivor of child sexual abuse at age 6 and grew
up with the vision to break silence on discrimination and oppression
of girls in the home, school and community. In 1998 she founded
the Girl Child Network which is an activist development girls rights
organisation that supports the empowerment of the girl child in
all spheres of social, economic and political. GCN presents a unique
model that supports the empowerment of the girl child in the home,
school and community.
To date over
20 000 girls have been rescued physically from sexual abuse and
rehabilitated as well as counselled and reinstated back in school.
In the past before Betty Makoni broke the silence on child sexual
abuse cases most of the cases were swept under the carpet and girls
feared to report, especially when the cases involved high profile
people.
The Girls Empowerment
Villages are unique in that most rural girls can now access justice,
stand against harmful cultural practices and access education. Many
girls in the poorest
Remote parts of Zimbabwe have been taken through empowerment programs
where new gender equality and human rights beliefs, practices and
attitudes are instilled. GCN is maybe the only most effective and
proactive organisation that focuses on the girl catches the girl
child whilst young in a holistic way that identifies and deals more
practically with issues that may impede her full development. There
is gender discrimination and inequality that is perpetrated against
the girl child from birth until old age.
Realising that the girl child empowerment strategy works , the model
has been replicated all over Zimbabwe by different players. Whole
communities, chiefs, kraal heads, teachers, orphaned girls, boys
and men are in support of GCN because Betty Makoni identified positive
cultural practices and blended them with the human rights and gender
equality concept .
However in some
instances, for Betty Makoni breaking the silence on rape of girls
has led to her victimisation.
Many girls are
now walking in the fullness of their potential. There are 30 000
girls in the poorest areas of Zimbabwe who are members of the Girl
Child Network Clubs. A full package of empowerment that includes
confidence building, humanitarian aid in the form of sanitary ware,
school fees and uniforms is provided to the girls so as to prevent
them from falling prey to older men who ask for sex in exchange
for money from poor and vulnerable girls.
There is a new breed of future women leaders in Zimbabwe coming
from the Girl Child Network Clubs.
Visit GCN's
fact sheet
Please credit www.kubatana.net if you make use of material from this website.
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons License unless stated otherwise.
TOP
|
