Two participants in our course on Women’s Health, Masculinities and Empowerment share their highlights of the day’s programme on Monday (07 September 2015).
Ngoni Chubukire is the regional team leader for leadership, gender and human rights at SAFAIDS:
The micro-finance session as an empowering tool stood out for me. Poor women find it difficult to access loans from formal financial institutions because of their low socio-economic status. I will endeavour to integrate micro-financing issues in our gender transformative work at SAFAIDS as a tool to empower rural marginalised women who live in abject poverty. I hope this will make a difference in the communities where we are implementing our programmes. This can be done through operating an effective referral system.
Masimba Nyamucheta, project officer for the Zimbabwe National Network of People Living with HIV (ZNNP+).
What stood out clearly was the policy and advocacy session facilitated by Itumeleng. Of importance was the power analysis wherein there is need to identify fence-sitters, supporters/allies and opponents. The session was an eye opener as we also carry out national advocacy for PLHIV (people living with HIV and AIDS). Some of our efforts were not bearing desired results due to lack of identification of collaborators/allies and especially opponents.