adminCatherine Murombedzi
NECESSITY is the mother of invention. Speaking of keeping girls in school today is a necessity which needs to have innovative ways that can ensure that the girls are focused and have a keen interest to accomplish academic goals.
They need to see the benefits of completing school, hence the need to bring real people who were once in the same situation and today have made it.
Girls are brought up to see marriage as the final destination, a success which most hurry to get into with negative impact on them.
Messaging needs to change, get an education first be empowered and see marriage as a last step an option, not the all.
Each society has a role model and my focus being farming communities, they too have success stories of people who grew up in their midst and today have made it. Mentorship programmes need to identify who in a community is a role model and can the young people in that community identify with the person.
Nurses, teachers and graduates in various academic fields have come from poor communities. There is need for people who have made it to come back and tell the struggling community that it is possible. A few decades ago I was in the same position.
We have few people coming out to share their inspirational stories and to mind comes Nyaradzayi Gumbonzvanda, the YWCA Secretary General and the AU ambassador to end Child Marriages.
Nyaradzayi’s term at the YWCA is soon coming to an end in May 2016 and she has written on her wall that she would be coming back home (Zimbabwe) and would focus on strengthening the capacity of Rozaria Memorial Trust.
This is a trust in honour of her late mother Mbuya Marumisa Dizha which has girl child needs living with HIV at heart. The trust capacitates their skills in sewing, gardening, public speaking and literacy treatment in health while ensuring that the girls are kept in school.
Here is a local girl championing the cause of girls from her home area Magaya in Murehwa, Zimbabwe. Charity begins at home and funds permitting, the trust pledges to spread to other deserving area.
The script for farming communities is similar. Both boys and girls drop off school before secondary school.
For girls the tragedy becomes double edged as they fall pregnant before the age of 15. The recent Constitutional Court outlawing child marriages is applauded.
What needs to be done is effective action in the home. Yes, there is a declaration by the court but there is need to enforce it. It has to be a behaviour change that is implemented from home.
How can this be done? A community needs to be protected when they report a child abuse. Some abuses are not reported for fear of the justice system which does not protect the complainant.
Anonymous drop in boxes at shops, schools and even at the church can be the answer. The police have victim friendly units and schools have councils incorporating teachers and parents these can be strengthened because they already exist. Strengthening capacity has to be a mantra, calculate in people that it is wrong.
A good example on stopping cholera was awareness, drink clean water, wash your hands after visiting the toilet, tablets to make the water safe were provided and this became a second habit that people drawing water from unsafe points were aware that the water had to be treated.
The same can be done with ending child marriages, keeping girls in schools. The benefits of keeping a child in school have to be seen. This is where success stories from the community come in. Nyaradzayi, a reputable lawyer at one time trekked to school on foot.
Sex education needs to go beyond puberty. Give objectives and goals. Talk of benefits of completing school. How and on what? Farming communities face the vagaries of the economy depending on good harvests they are the first to suffer after a bad spell.
Talking of the Zimbabwean situation it is even worsened by drought, most farm land is now held by cell phone farmers who have not used the land productively. So how can a girl in this community complete school, on what and how? There needs to be incentives the basic education assistance model played a role but with UNICEF pulling out in 2014 a big dent is felt now as over 300 000 needy children fail to go to school.
A noble project BEAT AIDS Zimbabwe spearheaded by Gary Blick now is raising money to sent over 300 000 pupils to school.
The Government currently has an innovative platform STEM where science taking students at Advanced Level have their fees paid for in public schools by the government.
Indeed noble, but this will fail to capture our key population in need that of the farming community. There is no laboratory to talk of at their mud and grass thatched schools.
Reality check is needed here, the girl in the farming community needs a school with books, needs to have her fees paid, needs to have supplementary feed at school. For girls menstrual hygiene can’t be over emphasised they need affordable sanitary ware as they miss schools during their cycle days.
It is not impossible to be at school, this message has to be repeated to girls. Real people and inspirational stories, Dr Trent from Hurungwe now lives in the United States and is involved with school building in her community.
Muzvare Betty Makoni of the Girl Child Network grew up in a poor high-density suburb of Chitungwiza in Harare and is not shy to say it. Have real life stories.
Have community champions now in university, nursing school or teachers colleges come to address open days at school. Make Careers Day a part of the school calendar where these role models address the children.
What these women mentioned above have done is that they have adopted children welfare through their works. They are sending children to school – such mentorship programmes speak volumes.
Sex education must not be limited to girls only. Pledge for parity. Girls do not live in isolation therefore schools and community involvement is paramount.
Poverty is not an individual aspect, it is a family issue. Programmes must not be exclusionary but must embrace the family aspect.
Scholarships usually target the intelligent students only, focus must also shift to the neediest children in poor set-ups.
We talk of girls returning to school after falling pregnant. They need support. For those aged above 18 they can have easy to carry jobs assigned to them so that they feel that they are making a meaningful contribution. How is this possible, gardening clubs at schools to sell their proceeds even at a very low price but this makes one realise their worth as they learn book keeping and farming at once.
We used to have sewing and knitting clubs during the days I attended school in the late 70s. These can be revived. Knitting clubs are not expensive and can keep girls occupied after school hours and even at home.
We talk of pre-exposure prophylaxis, but is it this readily accessible. Prep should be easily accessible, just like condoms no questions must be asked. One knows what risk one got involved in but prep is not easily accessible in Zimbabwe. It can be made available over the counter it must not be stringent as currently is.
Back to sex education, culture says no to sex, yet abstinence is not the case. Protection has to be raised as an awareness issue. Counsel the young girls to negotiate for safer sex. Sex for young girls is usually trans-actional hence the need for one to negotiate for safer sex. It’s undesirable to say but that is reality.
Identify role models from the community, yes they are there: bring these people to speak to the children in schools.
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