adminSpeaking during a tour of women’s projects in Bulawayo on Thursday, Dr Masango said women empowerment programmes and campaigns were useless without the involvement of men.
“The issue of including men in our programmes is of paramount importance. We should include the men we always accuse of abuse and make them participate in our programmes,” said Dr Masango.
She said women in Bulawayo had to start gender clubs, which were already in existence in other provinces.
“I encourage you to start gender clubs which will educate boys and girls from as young as five years to participate in women’s programmes. When we empower women as families which include men and children, we would have empowered the nation,” she said.
Dr Masango toured projects, which include Imbizo Women’s Piggery Project in Manningdale where a total of 20 women are breeding pigs and the Women with a Mission project in Hillside where women are recycling
old clothes, plastics and property for a living.
In separate interviews, Mrs Nokuthula Dabengwa, the chairperson for Imbizo Women’s Piggery Project, expressed gratitude to Vice-President Joice Mujuru who gave the women three sows to start their project.
“We would like to thank the Vice-President who gave us three sows to start this project. We are happy today the number has grown to 33 and our major challenge now is land as this project is being run from a home belonging to a member,” said Mrs Dabengwa.
Ms Thoko Ngwenya, the chairperson for Women with a Mission, said their project aimed at empowering vulnerable women at a very low cost. “Besides being environmentally friendly, our project seeks to empower women especially the single mothers so that they make money out of recycling their old clothes and property,” said Ms Ngwenya.
She said women were free to join the project, which only needs skills and recycled materials for inputs.
Dr Masango urged the women to aim higher and grow their businesses promising that her Ministry was going to continue supporting them in all endeavours. “I am impressed by the hard work that you have shown in coming up with these projects. It will be good that you aim higher for 2012 and work towards growing your businesses so that you get more money which means more economic empowerment for us,” said Dr Masango.
She encouraged women who are eagerly waiting for the government to give them loans to come up with project proposals.
“What you have done should be an encouragement to other women who think they are going to get loans from us without coming up with reasonable projects first. We are not going to give out any loans to lazy women who want money before projects,” she said.
Mrs Vaidah Mashangwa, the provincial development officer for Bulawayo Metropolitan province urged members of the public to actively participate in the empowerment of women and the eradication of gender- based violence.
“We will continue to preach the four Ps campaigns all the time until there is a decrease in gender-based violence cases. The four Ps involve action all the way and everyone needs to Participate, Protect, Prevent and be part of Programmes that seek to curb GBV,” she said.
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