THE Building Bridges for the Feminist Movement in Zimbabwe, has awakened the urge to champion women and girls rights in more than 70,000 young and budding feminists in at least four provinces in Zimbabwe where the project is being implemented.
By Michael Gwarisa
The program came at the back of indications that the women’s movement was experiencing a decline in activism, as experienced women human rights defenders (WHRD) move on and young women have not necessarily had the opportunity to gain the skills, experience, finance and capacity to push the women’s agenda.
The 27-months long project was initiated by the Women’s Action Group (WAG) on October 1, 2019 and ran up to 31 December 2021 based on an original 24-month grant from the Ing Foundation (now extended to 27 months due to the Covid-19 pandemic and resulting unforeseen delays). The project aims to increase women’s participation in leadership roles and decision-making spaces and strengthen the feminist movement in Zimbabwe.
Speaking during a virtual WAG Building Bridges Learning Event, Fiona Tinarwo, the WAG Programs Manager said women and girls oppression was still rampart in both private and public spaces hence the need for a robust feminism centered program like the Building Bridges project.
The term building bridges speaks volumes of what we really wanted to drive. We wanted to see that inter-generational gap being closed between feminists of yesteryear and those of today. We wanted them to see where we are coming from so that they also understand what feminism is about and they understand the feminists’ ideologies we used in all the work that we were doing.
“We need to revitalize the feminist movement, that’s why we came up with this building bridges project and it is important to us and we continue to celebrate the work that we have done under the building bridges project. Intersecting systems of oppression continue to affect women’s participation in developmental issues. One of those issues is violence against women and girls that does not discriminate on the basis of your sexuality, disability or age, we continue to suffer,” said Tinarwo.
She added that even in spaces of work, women and girls continue to be oppressed, hence the need for women who are also in the private sector to address issues of violence and to come up with systems of reporting violence in their spaces.
“We also discovered that young women were also lagging behind in terms of the feminist ideologies so we said to ourselves, how do we bridge those gaps and how do we ensure that we have more young women coming on board in the movement and we continued to build those bridges. It is important for us to continue talking about feminism.
[pullquote]“The lack of economic independence or control is a factor which can prevent women from leaving a violent partner or household in which they experience violence and prevents them from taking up leadership roles. When it comes to economic empowerment, without addressing the issues of economic empowerment, we will continue to see women suffering and experiencing Gender Based Violence (GBV). That is also another important pillar that was also driving us as we were implementing the building bridges project.”[/pullquote]
The building bridges project also addressed the disparities between rural and women and girls through giving rural girls a voice, in the process removing the elitist tag that is usually associated with feminism. Project activities have been delivered in the main across three districts; Harare, Bulawayo and Masvingo.
Meanwhile, speaking on the impact of the building bridges project, Clara Mhlaba, the WAG Program Officer said, “The project has really improved the lives of many women in the communities. We can see that the project has contributed to increase knowledge among women and girls in the communities as women are now aware of their rights. We can see that they now know they have a right to participate in the economic, social and political spheres.
“This has actually helped in increasing their confidence. They are now accessing health and Gender Based Violence services. We can actually see that the Building Bridges project has actually helped in empowering women with knowledge and information. The project has also helped women to take up leadership positions in their different communities. We have more and more women taking up leadership positions at family and community level now.”
She added that some women were now ready to take up even political positions ahead of the 2023 elections with a view to influence change on a larger scale. Through community champions they worked with in three districts in Masvingo, Bulawayo and Harare, the building bridges project helped in creating income generating projects for women and girls in the communities. Some of the projects include chicken farming, income landings and savings projects, and gardening projects among others. Some who received seed funding in Makoni districts were able to diversify their farming projects into other sub agricultural initiatives.
Mrs Edinah Masiyiwa the WAG Executive Director said the Gender Based Violence (GBV) terrain was constantly changing and there was need to come up with new ways to address emerging issues around GBV.
“The issues are changing because of the changing context we are in. For example, when we look at violence against women, it has changed. We started off fighting domestic violence but we now have violence in public spaces, violence on the internet. We have to continue pushing our project towards that area where we really address the needs of communities. I would like to see the building bridges project going broader, we were concentrating mainly in four provinces but we could broaden it as well. We also need to continue speaking about bodily autonomy. Who owns my body? We really need to have a conversation around that,” said Ms Masyiwa.
Meanwhile, the Building bridges project was also supported by the Womankind Worldwode. Piyumi Samaraweer, the Programme Manager: Innovation & Partnerships at Womankind Worldwide said, “The success of the building bridges project is due to the fact that we are in a partnership that we can trust. We were also enabled and emboldened by a very supportive donor Ing Foundation and I would like to acknowledge them because not all donors are like that even in the extended moment of the kind of global pandemic that we are all experiencing.”
