Back to Index

Last week at a Glance - Issue 57
Women's Coalition
March 07, 2011

My Thoughts

This week we focus on the International Women's Day Celebrations which are commemorated on the 8th of March every year. This year's celebrations are special because it's the 100th commemorations since the first celebrations in Germany 1911. The objectives of the celebrations are to celebrate women's economic, political and social achievements. This day should be important to everyone and I feel we should reflect on what our mothers, sister, aunts, grandmothers, mother in law, sister in law, niece and daughters have done in order for the day to be successful. This year's global theme "Equal Access to education, training and science and technology; Pathway to decent work for women", is crucial for women rights activists in Zimbabwe. It gives them an opportunity to lobby the government of Zimbabwe to ensure the right to education for all is enshrined in the new constitution. Education is a major factor in enhancing a country's social and economic development as it enables them to access knowledge, jobs, and to make decisions and life choices.

Peace Building Project

The Peace Building Officer visited the Midlands Chapter on the 28th of February to the 1st of March in order to give technical support to the chapter. During this period, the officer joined the WCoZ Midlands leadership in sensitising the local authorities in the Midlands province namely, the Gweru District Administrator, Lower Gweru Rural District Council and Zvishavane Rural District Council whereby the Committee members informed the local authorities about the women and peace building project and the role that local authorities play in promoting peace building in the province. The Chapter will be organising a Provincial Sensitization workshop for the local and traditional leaders from the 7 districts during the week starting 14-18 March

Chapter Quarterly Meetings

During the past week the WCoZ Secretariat had the opportunity to attend 3 Chapter Quarterly Meetings that were held in Binudra, Marondera and Masvingo. The objectives of the meetings were to update chapter members of the WCoZ Activities of the quarter, including International Women's Day which is an important day on the WCoZ Calendar, brief members on the recent WCoZ 2010 Annual General Meeting and to update the Chapter database.

The meetings also gave members who attended an opportunity to speak to the secretariat about their expectations of their Chapters and how these should be met by the Secretariat. Common expectations from the Chapters were Capacity Strengthening of Chapters in terms of equipment such as laptops, printers, offices and trainings in management of business, basic computer skills and proposal and report writing. If these expectations are met the Chapters will be able to be effective and efficient in their constituencies.

Jekesa Pfungwa Field Visit

54 kilometers out of Harare along the Mutoko road, in ward 12 of Goromonzi district is where the WCoZ traveled to for their field visit with Jekesa Pfungwa a member organization on Tuesday 1 March 2011. The objective of the visit was to gather news for the upcoming WCoZ Quarterly Newsletter.

The field visit was organized by Jekesa Pfungwa's field officer Mary Hapadziwi who has been in the organization for 20 years. The visits included 3 projects namely the Sustainable Agriculture, Small Scale and Organisational Development programmes. Projects underway in these programmes include Piggery, Nutrition Gardening, Peanut Butter making, Mushroom growing and Improved orchards. As part of Jekesa Pfungwa's programme the members in this district have been trained in Organic farming, Food and Nutrition, Gender, Recording Keeping, Business Management, HIV and AIDS, Home Based Care, Homestead Development and Wills and Inheritance laws.

Visit the Women's Coalition 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