GWEN – Girls and Women Empowerment Network

GWEN’s family-centred approach to gender justice

GWEN is an innovative community-based organisation led by a young inspiring woman and mother. In the project with fepa, the family is at the centre. Unfair treatment and discrimination of girls and young women is fixed in most families. When girls and young women challenge such disadvantages and find support and allies within and outside their own families, there is powerful leverage for improvement.

Specifically, GWEN works with girls and young women and strengthens their knowledge, self-confidence, solidarity and also their economic position. At the same time, it addresses family issues in communities, highlighting the importance and opportunities when and how girls can be empowered.

Thanks to our work, primarily girls and young women as well as other members of the communities in Seke and Chitungwiza are given the opportunity to create more equitable family relationships.

GWEN uses various entry points for this purpose: 2022 these are mainly meetings with girls, where education and livelihood issues are addressed and health and menstruation education can also take place; as well as public film screenings with discussions on family structures, girls’ and women’s rights, where important dignitaries and committed men also speak out.

GWEN has an activist approach: wherever possible, participants take action. In order to make this situational and community-integrated work possible, fepa hardly sets any guidelines, for example on the number of individual activities. However, we continuously evaluate the implemented activities together with GWEN with regard to their effectiveness and efficiency. In this way, the project creates new insights and confirms methods of how people themselves can contribute to more justice in their families and communities.

Our committment, our engagement

GWEN and fepa work together to

• achieve a gender equitable society where girls and young women feel comfortable and free from sexualised violence
• facilitate a ‘home-grown’ change in family structures so that families promote, rather than hinder, access to family rights for all members
• enable all family members to realise their potential and contribute meaningfully to development and well-being

The family-centred approach in detail

Why?

• structural roots of inequality in patriarchal families
• gender myths can be deconstructed, healing can be achieved
• “home-grown” solutions to problems in the home
• communities in charge

Toolbox

• community cinema
• community and school visits on menstrual hygiene, including distribution of sanitary pads
• exchanges with community leaders and stakeholders
• financial support for girls’ school visits
• workshops on detergent production
• community dialogues on drug abuse
• mother-daughter dialogues
• GWEN TRUST FRIDAY FACTS podcast

GWEN

GWEN works primarily in Chitungwiza and the rural foothills of Harare in Seke District to promote gender equality and for girls and young women. Traditional role models are widespread in the semi-rural communities. GWEN’s activists, who themselves come from these communities, work to change the way individuals, families and communities think. GWEN specialises in protecting the rights of vulnerable girls and women and how to promote them so that they claim their rights themselves. GWEN is very committed and has developed an innovative toolbox with activities and methods that are practical for working in communities.

GWEN’s director: Kumbirai Kahiya

Kumbirai Kahiya, founder and director of GWEN, grew up in a patriarchal family together with her twin brother. To conform to prevailing expectations, she had to behave, eat, speak and dress in certain ways. As a young football fanatic (and still a big Manchester United fan), she could not understand why she was not allowed to wear shorts to play like her brother. The decision was easily made: she went to work and bought her own football shorts with the money she earned – her own possession, which she wore with self-determination.

The experience of many women in Zimbabwe of not having access to resources was also hers. Her brother owned the land. By contributing financially to the family’s income, she also demanded the right to have a say and a say. But selling tomatoes on the street day in and day out while waiting for a man to propose marriage was not an option for her. She looked for ways to transform this prefabricated path. Not only for herself, but for all women in her community. Women need a place “where girls can just be girls”, says Kumbie. For which safe spaces – like Kumbie’s house was in GWEN’s informal beginnings – are of central importance. This is how GWEN came into being. Today, not only the offices of the organisation itself, but also the activities they carry out in the communities serve as such safe spaces.

FCGEA is a concept that leaves no one behind and ensures that everyone is on board when it comes to promoting the rights of girls and young women, from the nuclear family to the larger community. – Kumbirai Kahiya, Director GWEN

fepa partner organisation	GWEN, Girls and Women Empowerment Network
Location	Seke, Chitungwiza
Target group	Girls and young women, families and communities
fepa contribution 2021	CHF 5’000
fepa contribution 2022	CHF 16’500
fepa contribution 2023-25	CHF 50’000

Currently

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With your donations for this project…

… you support an innovative grass root organisation that is campaigning for girls and young women.

60-jähriges Bestehen von Fepa: A Night to Remember!

Der 60. Jahrestag von Fepa war eine unvergessliche Feier mit vielen Höhepunkten, die uns alle in Erstaunen versetzten!

Die Jahreshauptversammlung: Geschäft und Inspiration
Unsere Jahreshauptversammlung bildete den Rahmen für eine Kombination aus Geschäft und Feier, bei der wir auf sechs unglaubliche Jahrzehnte des Erfolgs zurückblicken konnten.

Das Podium: Entfesselte Experten
Unsere Podiumsdiskussion mit Experten war ein Brainstorming-Kraftwerk, das innovative Ideen hervorgebracht und unsere Begeisterung für die Zukunft entfacht hat.

Der Apero: Kulinarische Köstlichkeiten
Der Apero verführte unsere Geschmacksnerven und bot einen Einblick in die reiche Geschichte von Fepa und unsere aufregende Zukunft.

Ndomzy: Aktivismus, Sprache und Tanz
Ndomzy, eine leidenschaftliche Aktivistin, betrat die Bühne. Ihre kraftvolle Rede bewegte uns, und ihre unglaublichen Tanzschritte begeisterten die Menge. Sie drückte die Kraft der Kommunikation durch Aktivismus und Tanz aus, hielt die Kultur lebendig und verband sich mit der Zukunft Afrikas.

Tanzchoreografie: Groove Central
Unsere choreografierten Tanzroutinen verwandelten die Tanzfläche in eine Dance-off-Extravaganz mit Musik für jeden Geschmack.

Die große Party mit DJ Qpaem
Aber die Party ging erst richtig los, als DJ Qpaem an den Decks auflegte! Die Beats brannten, und die Afrobeat-Musik versetzte uns alle in einen Rausch und wir bewegten uns zu den ansteckenden Rhythmen.

Kurz gesagt, der 60. Jahrestag von Fepa war eine Mischung aus Geschichte, Innovation, Unterhaltung und Freude. Auf weitere 60 Jahre voller Erfolg und unvergesslicher Momente, in denen wir die Kultur lebendig halten und mit Afrika in die Zukunft blicken! 🥂🎈🕺🎶 #Fepa60thAnniversary #PartyOfTheDecade #CulturalCelebration #movewithit

LIVELIHOOD-PROJECT: Financial skills and microfinance for women

The Livelihood Project trains women in entrepreneurship and financial management and accompanies them in setting up businesses. In addition, they get access to business loans and thus to capital to finance their projects – mostly in agriculture.

Empowering women – changing society sustainably

Since 2009, the local farming community has gradually lost access to land that is used by corporations for the production of bio-ethanol. This poses a financial problem for many farming families, reducing their livelihoods. This leads to increased poverty. In addition, there is a heavy burden from the current drought; 2019 will go down as one of the driest years in Zimbabwe’s history.

As a result, there is an increase in problems such as school dropouts, thefts, increased prostitution, child marriages as well as the hiring out of children, preferably girls. Family fathers often migrate to the neighbouring countries of South Africa and Botswana in order to find an income there. However, this is often difficult. The women stay behind alone with the children and start looking for a new income. Farming alone is not enough to feed the family.

Women try to set up small businesses in the village community. To do this, they use the small areas of land they have left to grow vegetables, raise pigs or poultry.

The livelihood project was initiated by our partner organisation PYCD (Platform for Youth and Community Development) and has been active in Chipinge since 2008. It has been shown that often technical skills for new projects are available, but basic entrepreneurial skills were lacking and capital was not or only with difficulty accessible. This is exactly where the project comes in.

The main goal of the project is to find solutions to deal with women’s financial challenges.

Research showed that supported women invest a large part of their earned income in projects that benefit the village community and use it to feed other family members or to finance their education. However, sometimes they invest in projects that are not very profitable. Therefore, the project aims to invest efficiently and in an economically sustainable way. When women are financially independent from their husbands, their social position also improves. The project thus makes an important contribution to gender equality and meets the targets of SDG 5 (Gender Equality). Further SDGs are thus supported.

Currently

At the moment, 15 women are receiving training tailored to their specific needs in a pilot phase. This includes a practical coaching programme that accompanies them in their various business activities.

fepa partner organisation	Platform for Youth Development
Location	Chipinge, Zimbabwe
Target group	female entrepreneurs, women in general
fepa Budget until 2024 total	CHF 20’000

WAP – WOMAN ADVOCACY PROJECT

“Clean Girl” – With liquid soaps against early marriage

Girls and young single mothers learn the craft of soap production. The sale of the produced liquid soap generates income for the participants and makes them at least partially financially independent. This enables them to pay school fees on their own and makes them less vulnerable to being married off early and against their will.

Currently

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With financial independence in a self-determined future

In Zimbabwe’s impoverished suburbs, there is hardly any access to WASH (water, sanitation, hygiene). The number of teenage mothers is on the rise in the crisis-ridden country. Although early marriage is prohibited by law in Zimbabwe, this practice is still widespread throughout the country and is also an existing problem in the townships around Harare. Those affected have hardly any economic means of survival and are consequently particularly vulnerable to exploitative conditions, e.g. within sex work. Their children grow up in poverty. These teenage mothers and girls affected by or at risk of early marriage are the target group of this project. The main focus is on poverty reduction and the prevention of child marriages and teenage pregnancies. Through their presence in the community, the participants themselves become ambassadors against child marriage and contact persons for their peers.

The project organises small groups of vulnerable girls and women and accompanies their weekly meetings. At these meetings, liquid soap is produced, sales are organised and mutual assistance is provided in social and economic matters. The meetings provide a protected space for the participants. The participants are accompanied by WAP for 12 months – the aim is for them to be able to produce and market soap on their own afterwards.

WAP founder Constance Mugari and her husband are fully committed to protecting young women. They are convinced: “Poverty puts the girls in danger. Because they have no money to spend, they are taken out of school, pregnant early, married off and sometimes even driven into sex work.” Constance Mugari, her husband and a small team of Ambassadors aim to drive positive change in the areas of child marriage, teenage pregnancies and access to education. WAP has been fighting for the protection and rights of young, disadvantaged and marginalised girls and women with competence and commitment since 2012, thereby empowering them on their way to a self-determined future.

WAP works in 6 townships of Harare where poverty levels are high – especially since the outbreak of the Covid-19 pandemic.

fepa partner organisation	WAP (Women Advocacy Project)
Location	Harare, Zimbabwe
Target group	Women and young single mothers that are in danger of being early married
fepa contribution 2021-22	CHF 6-15’000
fepa contribution 2023-25	CHF 55’000

BLF – Better Life Foundation

The youth organisation BLF campaigns against gender-based and sexualised violence in the rural Mutoko District, about 100 kilometres north-east of Harare.

As part of a project supported by fepa, a Women Protection Committee was established. Its task is to offer protection to girls and women affected by gender-based violence and to support them in the prosecution of the offences and the conviction of the perpetrators. A positive impact on local jurisdiction in cases of gender-based violence is already visible as a result. The report with insights into the details of the project can be found here.

BLF has also composed and performed a Women’s Song to speak out against gender-based violence and child marriage.

Currently

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CYDT – Community Youth Development Trust

The youth organisation CYDT works for women’s political participation in the southern Granz town of Beitbridge and in Gwanda Central, about 530 kilometres southwest of Harare. In the process, civic education trainings for women were conducted. Multiplication campaigns support the process: women and men who have received further training act as multipliers within their environment in the long term in order to sensitise acquaintances, family members and friends to the political participation of women.

The full report with insights into the details of the project can be found here.

Currently

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MDPZ – Miss Deaf Pride Zimbabwe Trust

Miss Deaf Pride Zimbabwe advocates for the concerns and rights of people with hearing disabilities in Harare, the capital of Zimbabwe. Access to knowledge about sexual and reproductive health and rights is denied to many people with hearing disabilities – which is why MDPZ focuses primarily on sexuality education in sign language.

As part of a project supported by fepa, several sexuality education workshops were conducted in sign language. Videos were also produced to raise awareness of structural and sexual violence against people with hearing disabilities among a wider population. The full report and insights into the project can be found here.

Currently

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PNYOF – PaHukama National Youth Oryxes Foundation

PNYOF, or the Youth Oryxes as they call themselves, is a youth-led organisation active mainly in Chinhoyi, but also in Harare and more recently in Bulawayo.

PNYOF is committed to the community of practice for women’s rights and gender justice. They will contribute to nationwide activism, especially in the context of the 16 Days Campaign.

Currently

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