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 |