By Michael Gwarisa in Shamva
She probably has the most beautiful smile in Shamva, but don’t let that fool you. Rosemary Sibanda is a goal-getter, confident, bold and aiming for greater heights in her career as a rider working under Zimbabwe’s Integrated Specimen Transportation System (IST).
Being caregivers, women find it difficult to penetrate male-dominated fields, and in most cases, employers prefer males to females for certain roles. Despite the many years of female activism and women empowerment advocacy, the gender gap in the professional world has not been closed.
However, for Rosemary, it’s a different story. She believes her gender and biological make-up are not an obstacle or an excuse for not working hard. The 35-year-old mom has made tremendous strides as a rider and is now a household name in Shamva District, Mashonaland Central.
Even though the program has procured smaller female-friendly bikes, Rosemary now rides a bigger bike than most of her counterparts.
I’m enjoying working as a rider in this male-dominated work,” says Rosemary. “Right now I need a bigger bike. There is a 190XR Honda and I’m asking for them to find me another bigger bike. It seems like everybody just thinks that males are the only ones who can ride a bike, but I’m beating the odds, and I’m enjoying it.”
Rosemary is one of the few female riders countrywide working in the IST program out of the 94 total riders. The project has five female riders, the rest are male. The riders are employed by the Biomedical Research and Training Institute (BRTI), a Ministry of Health implementing partner of the IST project. The IST project is funded by the Global Fund through UNDP. The riders’ job is to transport specimens and sample results between health facilities and laboratories.
“So every day we have a timetable, which we use for the daily visits to the facilities. Daily, each rider goes to the assigned site for the day,” adds Rosemary.
Shamva district has about 22 clinics and is serviced by four riders including Rosemary. Daily, she rides for an estimated 120 to 130 kilometres (km).
Despite riding being a men’s world, Rosemary has a few words for female riders who wish to take up the job as riders under the IST project or any other project
“Riding a bike is exciting. It gives you an independence as a woman. I think everybody should do it. Every woman out there should learn how to ride a bike, even if it’s not for work, but just for fun. I think I was just born as a person who was challenged by everything. When I actually heard about the posts of a rider, I was like, I want to do this and then I came here, the interviews were tough. We were asked to ride a bike as part of the interviews. And I passed amongst other males who were there. And I was so happy, and I was like, I don’t want to leave this profession. I want to ride.”
Challenges Faced By Female Riders
Rosemary is married and has one child. She has to at times tend to her family needs as a mother and caregiver. Menstruation on the other hand does not stop because one is a rider and this brings its own fair share of challenges
“As a female rider, I would actually want to say it’s a bit challenging at times, because there’s that time of the month (Menstruation), and then you have to ride your bike and sometimes you have to go long distances. I want to thank the Shamva team. During those times, I’ll be like, ah my guy let’s swap routes, let’s swap stations so you can go further and I’ll go closer because probably I’ll be sick.”
Rose has worked for BRTI as a rider for four years now. Apart from the biological and social challenges, riding can at times be dangerous especially on the highway where there is huge traffic volumes. Rosemary was involved in a hit-and-run accident once in 2021 when a trucker hit her and sped off from the accident scene during one of her specimen collection and delivery errands. The IST program has however introduced ways of keeping riders off busy highways to minimise accidents and injury to the riders.
“At first I would come back and I would be like, I’m tired. And then people wouldn’t understand what I would be talking about. I’m tired. But I’ve learned to accustom myself to riding. The roads are now easier than they were before. And I’m happy. I have a daughter. She’s proud of me. She’s like, Mom, I want to be like you. I want to ride like you,” said Rose.
There are 341 clusters, served by 280 motorbikes and 8 provincial vehicles. Out of these 94 riders (In 23 districts), are supported by the Global Fund Investments. Additionally, 29 bikes in PEPFAR-supported (40) districts are also supported by the Global Fund.
Masholanad Central province boasts of 160 health facilities with 12 of them being hospitals and the others being clinics. The specimens are collected from 160 health facilities to one Central Laboratory at Bindura Hospital.
However, before the IST program was introduced in the province, Mash Central would struggle to transport samples from clinics to the laboratory.
Dr Cremence Chuma, the Provincial Medical Director for Mashonland Central Province said the IST, program does not discriminate against gender lines.
“For us when we recruit we just make sure that we don’t say this is a job for males and this is for the females and we take everyone as equals. We have a number of female riders in other health programs in the province as well as under the IST. At times I get surprised about the distances they travel and the areas they cover because the roads are not so good. Still, they can rise and deliver the service both for these specimens and environmental health technicians,” said Dr Chuma.
Across the country, specimens are being collected from all the 2000 facilities within the ministry of health, and the facilities are getting serviced by the motorbikes at least twice or three times per week.
Chiedza Mguni, the BRTI Technical Lead Clinic Laboratory Interface said the IST program has been receptive to the needs of the female riders. This includes finding suitable bikes that are female-friendly and easy to ride among other interventions.
“As a program, we are indeed responsive to the needs of the female riders even when it comes to riders’ gear that is bought. We specifically procured gear that is more tailor-made for the female riders. There are also at times hindrances to the female rider, let’s say maybe it’s that time of the month and they can always liaise with their other colleagues and have rerouting done so that females don’t ride longer distances during that period,” said Mguni.
She added that despite the progress made and the contributions the female riders have made towards the program, it was not easy to get them on board.
“It will be good to see even more of the female riders coming through to be a rider. However, it hasn’t been easy to see female riders on board due to a few issues. Some feel that it’s a job for men, and some are terrified of having to travel long distances on a bike alone. You find that as women we are mothers, we are wives and we have so many roles so at times it is difficult to balance some of these roles for some women and hindrances are probably cultural in some instances.”
Meanwhile, Dr Ayodele Odusola, the UNDP Resident Representative in Zimbabwe said more women should be encouraged to work as riders under the IST project.
“We have five women drivers and we want to see how we can work to increase the number of women that are participating in this particular initiative,” said Dr Odusola
Zimbabwe’s past sample transportation system faced significant hurdles that hindered effective treatment, including for People Living with HIV. Without investments to strengthen IST, these challenges persisted, leading to Ineffective coordination: Disjointed communication and collaboration between healthcare facilities and laboratories resulted in delays and errors, and delayed results amongst a host of other challenges. Thanks to riders like Rosemary and her female and male counterparts, significant improvements have been made in delivering timely and effective treatment, including HIV treatment, ultimately improving patient outcomes and overall public health.
