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Sukulwenkosi Dube-Matutu, Gwanda Correspondent
THE Zimbabwe Gender Commission is set to roll out a mentorship programme for women and girls to prepare them for leadership roles in various platforms.
The commission is in the process of registering applicants for the programme.
After compiling names from all the provinces, the commission will launch the mentorship programme.
Speaking in an interview during a Matabeleland South provincial gender forum in Gwanda recently, Zimbabwe Gender Commission chairperson, Commissioner Margret Mukahanana-Sangarwe said women were being continuously urged to assume leadership roles but they lacked capacitation.
“We will be launching a mentorship programme as a commission which is targeting women and girls. We realised that the main reason why women don’t participate in leadership roles is because they are less exposed than men in terms of political, social and economic aspects. We feel we need to train women and get people who can mentor them because some of them lack the confidence.
“We are not only looking at mentoring women in politics only but we are also looking at various leadership roles. Women should target leadership roles in Government, civil society and the private sector. We want women to be trained so that come the time for them to contest for various leadership positions then they will be ready.
Wherever we are going in the province we are identifying those women who want to be trained. Women will be trained throughout the country,” she said.
Comm Mukahanana-Sangarwe said the commission was going to come up with programmes that are relevant for each sector that women would want to be trained in.
She said after training them the commission will then go further to assist these women to take up various leadership roles.
“Over the past years we have been lobbying that women should stand for leadership roles which has really not helped. This time around we want individuals who will submit their names and receive training. The training will be a continuous process and we will also focus on young women as well and women in the rural areas,” she said.
Comm Mukahanana-Sangarwe said they were working with the Ministry of Women Affairs Community, Small and Medium Enterprise Development to try and identify women from rural areas who were going to be trained in each district.
She said economic disempowerment remained one of the hindrances for women to assume leadership roles in politics. Comm Mukahanana-Sangarwe said most women were less economically empowered when compared to their male counterparts in politics.
“One of our programmes as a commission is women economic empowerment. What we have been campaigning for as a commission is to change the electoral system so that people vote for political parties and not individuals. When people vote for political parties then the political party will submit names with an equal number of men and women.
This way we will have more women assuming roles in politics. There is also need for a certain number of constituencies to be reserved for women,” she said. — @DubeMatutu
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