Sabina Zunguze's Blog - A Gift to Africa

Realities facing Zimbabwe today

admin — Sat, 23 May 2009 02:51:10 +0000

This time I take you to this brave inspiring article written on the ongoings in Zimbabwe.. Please turn to Constance Manika’s story of the battle to survive in Zimbabwe:
http://thewip.net/contributors/2009/05/the_battle_to_stay_alive_survi.html

World Fair Trade Day - May 9, 2009

admin — Fri, 08 May 2009 19:54:41 +0000

A simple thing like buying a product has consequences far beyond feeding your family, making you feel good or giving you something new to talk about. Buying a product, whether it’s the fruit of one person’s labour or the result of super-efficient mechanization is a vote for the organization that provided you with the product.

To you it’s just a banana, just a T-shirt, or just a bar of soap; to a business it’s a response to consumer demand, and money in the bank for investors. But poverty, climate change and economic crisis are the result of the products we buy and the businesses we choose to support.

If you buy Fair Trade products, change becomes inevitable. It’s not complicated - if it were there wouldn’t be so many powerful businesses in the world. You are powerful. You are the change. You already knew that, didn’t you?

World Fair Trade Day 09 MAY 09 is a salute to the people and organizations who have dedicated themselves to making Fair Trade what it is today, a solution not an issue. Fair Trade is not just about poverty, it’s a solution to poverty, Fair Trade is not just about climate change, it’s a solution to environmental degradation and bad practice. Fair Trade is not just about protest, it’s about change. Change that’s long overdue.

World Fair Trade Day 09 MAY 09 is dedicated to you and the positive impact you can make in your community, through local and global events, that unite people and opinion, in a voice that can be heard wherever you are, whoever you are. Grassroots to G8.

Unite with millions of people and be the powerful voice of positive change. Let the world know you want to beat poverty, climate change and economic crisis, play your part in kick-starting the sustainable economy. Make World Fair Trade Day your global stage.

And vote. Vote by buying Fair Trade products and produce. Be the change you want to see.

Darfur Women Freed

admin — Sun, 05 Apr 2009 12:39:12 +0000

It is refreshing to hear that once in a while women of Africa experience some positive developments, especially those in such dire situations like the women of Darfur.
Earlier this year, a group of Darfuris women was saved from the hands of bandits who were believed to have been on a mission to take them hostages or possible war slaves.

The UN reported said troops from the joint United Nations-African Union peacekeeping mission in Darfur, tasked with protecting civilians and suppressing the bloody conflict in the region, foiled an attempted abduction of several women who had strayed outside a makeshift camp in the war-torn western flank of Sudan.

The report said a patrol from the hybrid force, known as UNAMID, was dispatched to the Hassa Hissa camp in West Darfur after being alerted that six women had been snatched while collecting firewood in nearby fields.

The kidnappers are said to have released the women when they saw the UNAMID team, made up of protection force personnel, police and military observers, approaching the scene.

The incident follows a series of violent incidents surrounding the Hassa Hissa camp, with the latest involving unidentified gunmen having shot dead the traditional leader or “sheikh” in the camp.

Let us hope that incidents like these never seize to happen.

Darfur Women

admin — Sun, 05 Apr 2009 12:37:57 +0000

The kidnappers are said to have released the women when they saw the UNAMID team, made up of protection force personnel, police and military observers, approaching the scene.

The incident follows a series of violent incidents surrounding the Hassa Hissa camp, with the latest involving unidentified gunmen having shot dead the traditional leader or “sheikh” in the camp.

Let us hope that incidents like these never seize to happen.

Women as Social, Political and Economic Agents of Change

admin — Wed, 05 Nov 2008 07:00:37 +0000

On November 6th, The Womens’ International Perspective (WIP) is hosting “Women as Social, Political and Economic Agents of Change” - our very first New York City event, sponsored by The President’s Office for Diversity & Community Affairs at Teachers College, Columbia University.

The WIP is committed to the belief that women are agents of change. We’re excited to present a panel of distinguished international women who will bring their professional and personal experiences to bear on this topic: Leymah Roberta Gbowee is the Executive Director of the Women’s Peace and Security Network Africa and the principal character of the film Pray the Devil Back to Hell; Dr. Monisha Bajaj is Professor of Education in the Department of International & Transcultural Studies at Teachers College; Gloriana Guillen is the Communications and Marketing Manager for Pro Mujer, an organization that provides Latin American Women with microcredit, healthcare, and training; Nomi Prins is a former Bear Stearns analyst, journalist, author, and senior fellow at Demos.

Women’s perspectives, as demonstrated through our work and the stories we publish, are critical in our quest for understanding and creating viable solutions for the most pressing issues facing our global society. Join us in discovering the insights and solutions that our panelists have made their life’s work. This community conversation in New York is bound to inspire as we continue to create change together.

US Elections and Africa

admin — Fri, 31 Oct 2008 19:12:35 +0000

Throughout the majority of sub-Saharan Africa there is a strong kinship with America, and US elections are closely followed. Since Barack Obama’s relatives hail from Kenya, this election, more than any other, has captured the hearts and attention of most Africans.

Check out this exciting new music video on Barack Obama and the 2008 election campaign. It is stylish, catchy and current.
He is American and a presidential candidate in his country. However, to the people of Kenya, he is the son and pride of their own soil.

Watch this Video

Women in Malawi - Replacing Sex Work With Econmic Empowerment

admin — Mon, 20 Oct 2008 22:58:18 +0000

Prostitution is deemed unacceptable in Malawi but the sex trade continues to thrive. Large numbers of women, especially young ones, are seen loitering around street corners, near hotels, bars and other entertainment places.
The United Nations Population Fund’s HIV Prevention Officer Humphreys Shumba says that sex work in Malawi is mainly driven by poverty. The country remains one of the most impoverished in the world and is ranked among the 14 poorest nations by the 2007/2008 United Nations Human Development Index, which ranks countries based on broader indicators of their quality of life including life expectancy, enrollment in school, freedom from disease and other measures.
According to 2008 research findings by the Community Health Department at the University of Malawi, up to 83 percent of prostitutes in Malawi are known to depend solely on sex work for their livelihoods and 95 percent of them have children. Sixty nine percent of the women who are involved in the sex trade are divorced.
Shumba says unprotected sex, which is often practiced by sex workers, is among the key drivers of the HIV/AIDS epidemic in Malawi. “Sex work in Malawi is characterized by, among other factors, lower age of entry into the trade where girls as young as 12 years are known to be sex workers,” he says. Since 2005, government has since been deploying child protection officers to find and rehabilitate child prostitutes so they can return to their communities.
Shumba explains that lack of negotiation skills and assertiveness in ensuring safer sex through condom use also aggravates the spread of HIV and other sexually transmitted illnesses.
UNFPA has since funded the Family Planning Association of Malawi (FPAM) to work on reducing the transmission of HIV among the prostitutes by empowering them to practice safer sex, and by increasing the sex workers’ access to reproductive health, voluntary counseling and testing.
So far, the law in Malawi is silent on prostitution. However, the police usually carry out night raids and arrest anyone found loitering in entertainment and public places – most of those arrested are prostitutes. The police charge them with minor infractions: either being found Idle and Disorderly, or Rogue and Vagabond - crimes that do not exact harsh punishment.
To fill in the gaps, FPAM is engaging the sex workers by providing them with information, skills for negotiating safer sex (condom use) and alternative livelihood options, says Bessie Nkhwazi, the NGO’s district manager for Lilongwe.
FPAM, the government, NGOs and other service providers in Malawi realize that they cannot stop prostitution overnight, so their focus is largely on HIV prevention. And though FPAM and UNFPA create their workplans with the government, it’s mainly for appearances so they can say the government is somehow involved. Some of the money that FPAM receives comes from the National AIDS Commission, which is a government body, but the government is mainly helping to combat child prostitution through the deployment of child protection officers. The implementation of actual programs, especially those for older prostitutes, are really falling on the NGOs.
“We are addressing the economic and social obstacles faced by those indulging in the sex work trade. The sex workers are undergoing training in business management and they are also being equipped with vocational skills such as tailoring, running hair salons, restaurants and mushroom growing,” says Nkhwazi.
Jane Banda, 25, is one sex worker who has been trained in tailoring. She is waiting for a loan to be provided by UNFPA through FPAM that will set her up with her new business.

World Food Day October 16th

admin — Fri, 17 Oct 2008 22:42:54 +0000

October 16th marks World Food Day, an annual global event sponsored by the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization. The occasion aims to draw our attention to the food crisis affecting nearly 923 million undernourished people around the world, and this year, the sponsors highlighted the related issue of biofuels and the necessity of developing sustainable bioenergy.

The price increase in oil, gas, and other energy sources goes hand in hand with the mounting cost of food. A recent BBC survey found that people, particularly those living in developing countries, are “cutting back on what they eat because food is more expensive.”

Unfortunately, the global food crisis remains buried under headlines devoted to the current financial crisis, as Petra Sorge of Der Spiegel notes. In so many of their articles, our contributors have described how hunger continues to worsen in their countries. We hope to see holistic solutions and policies emerge that connect the dots between the energy, food and financial crises. Hunger cannot be tabled for another day.

Get Involved, Please think about those who have nothing to eat on this day and visit http://www.fao.org/getinvolved/getinvolved-donatenow/en/

Trouser-wearing women beaten up in Sudan

admin — Fri, 10 Oct 2008 15:51:14 +0000

More than 20 southern Sudanese women were arrested and beaten for nude dressing, a defiance of the new moral edict.

According to the country’s minister for gender, Mary Kiden Kimbo, between 20 and 30 girls were picked up from different points, whisked into police lorries, taken to police station where some of them were beaten up.

Prior to the police crackdown on young women, the commissioner of Juba county, the capital of southern Sudan, Albert Pitia Redantore, on 2 October ordered a ban on “all bad behaviors, activities and imported illicit cultures” by women. This includes the wearing of trousers, short shirts or skimpy tops.

The young women were arrested after they left church service in Juba on Sunday. Others were rounded up in market places.

The new order was meant to “preserve the cultural values, dignity and achievements of the people of southern Sudan, checking out the intrusion of foreign cultures into our societies, for the sake of bringing up a good generation.”

Heavy penalty awaits anyone who defies the new edict - a practice which Ms Kimbo said was returning to the country to the old days of Shariah. She said such orders can create dangerous situation leading to mob justice, after all, principles of gender equality was enshrined in the regions’s constitutions.

I agree with Ms Kimbo who damned this action as not acceptable: it is not the job of police to judge what is and what is not a correct way to dress in such a manner of blanket punishment.

Should a mother with five children, one of them a pregnant teen and another an infant with special needs, be running for vice president?

admin — Wed, 24 Sep 2008 23:05:39 +0000

Should a mother with five children, one of them a pregnant teen and another an infant with special needs, be running for vice president?

The question is being much debated, in newspaper stories and columns, on blogs and Web sites, and, yes, around kitchen tables across the country.
We all know that noone would be asking these questions if she were a man.
No one asked whether Arnold Schwarzenegger should run for governor because he has four children. They looked at Maria, his wonderful wife, and said, what a beautiful family.
A mother doesn’t get the same treatment. This is how the the world has always worked - developed or developing world alike.
As a girl who grew up in Africa, I have always been told that “A father is not a mother,” my folks always remind me, in trying to help me make peace with all the things I didn’t feel right doing when my kids were younger. I gave up a job opportunity with the UN, rejected many lucrative job offers that involved me travelling.
How could I not put my kids to bed every night? How could I never be there to take them to school in the morning? I couldn’t. I used to get a stomach ache every time I left for the airport and they cried, even though I knew that they stopped crying five minutes after I left.
I did what I did. I don’t know if it was “right” or “wrong,” whether they are better for it or not, whether, as they grow up and go off to college, I will regret the decisions I made and come to grieve for what I don’t have, or be glad that I put them first.
I know many mothers who gave up far more than I did, and their kids are not grateful and not in good shape, and I know many mothers who gave up less and their kids are successful and devoted to them.
Who can say? That decision is for each one of us to make dependent on our own situation. My question is then that can a woman with 5 children put much needed attention both on the home front and to a country of more than 300 million people?