TENDAI BHEBE IN BULAWAYO
The French Embassy in conjunction with youths in Lupane, Matabeleland North Province, have donated 16 incubators to four wards in the district to economically empower women and the youth.
Birthwell Sibanda, the Lupane Youth for Development communications officer said the project will create employment and is targeting the women and youth in Lupane.
“Through these incubators, we want to emancipate women and to create employment for the youth as well. This is very significant in that it reaffirms the new dispensation’s commitment to the recognition and empowerment of young people from across the board. We are currently distributing incubators each powered by solar each having a capacity of 576 eggs every 21 days,” Sibanda said.
According to the National Development Strategy (NDS1), the agriculture sector is responsible for feeding the nation and providing livelihoods to about 67% of the country’s population and is generally a vital reference for economic recovery and growth.
“The increased interest in agriculture by youths is therefore an indicator of their desire towards contributing to the NDS1 which is key in resuscitating the economy,” he said.
According to the 2010-11 Demographic Health Survey, 24% of young women began child bearing in their teens, that is between 15 and 19 years, while 11% got married between the age of 20 and 24 years.
These girls do not usually go back to school due to fear of stigmatisation and have to focus on caring for their new babies.
Sibanda said most women are forced into early marriages.
“More and more girls and young women are victims of harmful cultural and religious practices as they are forced into early marriages. Our main objective for this project is to increase our outcome and to create more job opportunities,” he said.
He said women and youths should be self -employed.
Sibanda said the project would be a success and his organisation was looking forward to “working with these four communities”.
“As youths we want to support each other and develop our country’s economy to attain an upper middle-income-economy by 2030. Hoping the communities will cooperate so that this project is a success, “said Sibanda.
The Girls and Young Women’s Empowerment Framework is anchored on five strategic areas namely education, economic empowerment, safety and protection, reproductive health, decision making and leadership.
Section 27 (2) of the Zimbabwe’s constitution says the state must ensure that girls are afforded the same opportunities as boys to obtain education at all levels.
The framework highlights that gender parity is still to be achieved in upper secondary and tertiary levels of education.
Statistics show that 3.7% of young women aged between 20 and 24 years complete secondary education while the proportion of boys is 7.6 %.
