Emthonjeni Women’s Forum trains GBV activists to combat violence in churches”

EMTHONJENI Women`s Forum has trained 40 gender-based violence (GBV) community activists who will educate and conduct awareness sessions within their churches in four wards of Insiza District in Matabeleland South Province.

GBV remains a scourge in the country amid calls for more campaigns to help eliminate it.

Under the “Empower Her Faith: Uniting Against Gender-Based Violence” campaign, the community activists will be working with their churches to help fight GBV.

Emthonjeni Women`s Forum`s programme officer for Start Awareness Support and Action (Sasa) Faith programme, Ms Nobesethu Ndlovu, said the community activists would be working within their own churches.

She said the participants cover a wide range of churches within their wards.

“The Sasa Faith project is funded by Trocare and seeks to prevent GBV against women. It will be operating in Insiza Wards 1, 2, 15 and 19. Our primary target is churches within these wards. Our community activists will work as gender champions to cascade information on GBV in their churches,” said Ms Ndlovu.

“This is a five-year project that started last year and will end in 2027. We started with preliminary work and this week, we have been training them and they will now go back to the communities and begin work.”

Ms Ndlovu said they will be supported by the Community Action Groups, which include traditional leaders, church leaders and district stakeholders.

She said training locals to take charge in the fight against GBV was more sustainable as they will continue with the work beyond the programme.

Ms Ndlovu said GBV is also rife in churches although it is never discussed during worship services.

“The Sasa Faith principles that we have are peace, justice and dignity, which are found in the Bible. In a way, we complement the message of the church through this programme because GBV happens even in places where people least expect it. There will be ten community activists within the wards we are operating in,” she said.

Ms Nomathamsanqa Ncube from Ward One in Thuthuka Village who is part of the trained community activists said it was important for GBV to be fought as it can lead to diseases such as HIV and Aids and under development.

“We must eliminate GBV for the sake of the forthcoming generations because GBV leads to an increase in HIV infections and affects’ children’s education. GBV is prevalent even in churches, so we will take what we learnt to our communities, so that we change them for the better,” she said.

Another participant, Mr Dumezweni Siziba from Ward 19 said the lessons were empowering to man.

“As men, we learnt that we must involve our spouses in decision-making because the home belongs to both of us. I will take what I learned to my church men’s forum to educate them on some practices we do as men, which are part of GBV,” he said.

“This will improve our spirituality as a church because when we have some of us practicing GBV, it affects how we worship God.” — @themkhust.