Throughout a normal week in the Hwange District of Zimbabwe, 25 girls between the ages of 6 to 18 years visit GCN’s Hwange Empowerment Village. The Village provides a temporary shelter for girls rescued from rape and child abuse as well as a center for education and counseling and a place where girls can go after school. In these centers, the girls are fed, they receive basic health care and sanitary napkins, their uniforms are washed and they have a place to do their homework for school.
According to GCN staff, indicators of empowerment for these girls includes the ability to express themselves through poem writing and drama classes for self-esteem development as well as the ability to express their needs to their teachers and parents.
Empowerment Village staff recently held a Sports Day at the Village that included netball, three-legged races and egg tosses as a way for the girls to play and have some fun. They hope to use such techniques to build confidence for these girls, many of whom, have low self-esteem. All the girls come from poor backgrounds, and unfortunately many are now the head of their household, responsible for younger siblings, because they have lost their parents to AIDS.
Hardly a month goes by without us learning of the international recognition Betty received for her work and that of the Girl Child Network. Most recently Betty received the World Children's Prize for the Rights of the Child (WCPRC) in Sweden.
Betty was selected via a global vote of children with 6 million children in 89 countries. In accepting her award Betty stated that:
"It is quite humbling that I have received this award... I want to make it known that the award is the result of commitment to the upholding of women and girl's rights in Zimbabwe and I would like to thank and honor all those who help us back home in our empowerment and girl's rights programs".
IDEX congratulates Betty on this prestigious award!
On International Women’s Day (March 8th) IDEX hosted a compelling discussion between Betty Makoni, Founding Member and Director of Girl Child Network in Zimbabwe, and Walter Turner, host of KPFA’s Africa Today. Betty talked passionately about her work to bring about gender equity in Zimbabwe. Hear Betty talk of about the positive impact of educating girls and the benefits of encouraging them to stand up for their rights both on the girls themselves and the community as a whole. Listen to the podcast at http://wacsf.vportal.net/
Links:
About Project Reports
Project Reports on GlobalGiving are posted directly to globalgiving.org by Project Leaders as they are completed, generally every 3-4 months. To protect the integrity of these documents, GlobalGiving does not alter them; therefore you may find some language or formatting issues.
If you donate to this project or have donated to this project, you will get an e-mail when this project posts a report. You can also subscribe for reports via e-mail without donating or by subscribing to this project's
Promote This Project On Your Site
