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Last Week at a Glance - Issue 63
Women's Coalition
May 16, 2011

My Thoughts

Welcome to this week's edition of our weekly bulletin. WCoZ is pleased to announce that the constitution making process is now back on track with the Thematic Committees now meeting. However it seems most of the civic society players were left out of the processes and political parties chose their loyal members only. There are 17 thematic committees and originally they were picking out constitutional issues and recording how often they were coming out. WCoZ is carrying out a gender analysis of the members of thematic committees. WCoZ and its membership are also strategizing to ensure women effectively engage in the process.

Constitutional Update

The third stage in constitution making which is the meeting of the thematic committees started at the beginning of May 2011. However last week progress was stalled since political parties haggled and argued over the use of quantitative or qualitative analysis of the data. The MDC factions reported pulled out of the process and latter an amicable solution was found to analyze the data using both qualitative and quantitative methods.

The constitution making process is increasing being the preserve of political parties and questions are now being raised on the credibility of the process. During the outreach process a sizable chunk of civic society players took part and this was welcome, however the reduction of numbers of civic society players is an issue of concern.

The thematic committees are collating data to be used by the drafting experts to a make a draft constitution and the process was expected to be complete by the 20th of May 2011. Meanwhile, names of the constitution thematic committee members who are compiling data have been kept a secret but are now available after being approved by the Constitution Management Committee. Efforts to get the names from COPAC have been fruitless and WCoZ was referred to political parties for the names they had submitted for thematic committees.

Last Week at a Glance

Information Management Training Workshop

30 participants from the WCoZ membership attended the Information Management Workshop which was held from the 28th - 29th of April 2011 at the Rainbow Towers. The two day training session provided participants with the following experiences:

  • An understanding of the information management concept.
  • Identify the steps in information life cycle management
  • The management of digital information
  • A practical session of setting up institutional memory for participants' organisation

Topics covered during the training included information management; knowledge management; archives of Institutional Memory and the D Space which is an open source platform which enables organisations to capture and describe digital material using a variety of programmatic options.

The training was in response to the need NGOs face due the advent of the knowledge economy. Information Management is critical to both organizational performance and the women's movement. The training was facilitated by E-Knowledge for Women in Southern Africa (EKOWISA).

Young Women's Forum

37 young women attended the Young Women's Forum on Friday 6 May 2011 at the Crowne Plaza to finalize the Terms of Reference for the Forum and to vote for four more members to the WCoZ Young Women's Forum.

The meeting gave members an opportunity to come up with a Work Plan for the next 3 months and provided a space for the young women to interact and network. The Young Women penciled the next three weekends for visiting the under privileged in society. The first visit will be Mashambanzou on the 7th of May, on the 14th of May they visited St Giles and the 21st will be visiting the Teenage Mothers.

The WCoZ Young Women's Forum's Committee now has 11 members and the new members are Gamuchirai Mandangu from Women's Action Group; Patricia Magorokosho from FAMWZ, Tsitsi Mhlanga WiPSU and Millicent Tanhira from GALZ.

The young women are still appealing for donations from well wishers to give to the needy. If you would like to donate please contact WCoZ on 775765 or send an email to coalition@zol.co.zw or bring the donations to 9 Edmond Rd Belvedere.

Young Women's Forum Outreach Projects

The young women forum and the WCoZ Secretariat visited Mashambanzou Trust on the 7th of May 2011 and St Giles Rehabilitation. The Young Women's Forum would like to thank all well wishers who donated in kind to the worthy cause. On Saturday 14 May, the Forum spent the day with 13 children with disabilities from St Giles

Up Coming Events

The Advisory Forum
Where? Holiday Inn
When? 20 May 2011
Time? 0730 - 0900hrs
Who is Invited? Mature and experienced women rights actvists
Agenda: Finalizing TOR and Advisory Committee

Female Directors Forum
When? 24 May 2011
Where? Holiday Inn, Harare
Time? 0900hrs - 1230hrs
Who is invited? Strictly Female Directors only

WCoZ Leadership and Governance Training Workshop x 2
When? 14 and 16 June (you can choose which day to attend)
Where? Crowne Plaza
Time? 0800hrs -1600hrs
Who is invited? Director and 2 board members to attend on any of the
days.

Visit the Women's Coalition fact sheet

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