
Natacha Hossanny began her career as an officer at the Municipality of Port-Louis (MPL) in 2012. She has known Gender Links (GL) since then and has witnessed the admirable endeavour […]
Breaking New Ground Picture a Fire Fighter for a moment! What are you imagining? A male? Strong and heroic? The reality is a bit different but it’s an image of […]
Mrs Anuradha Pooran is a dynamic 58 year old woman and is the President of APEDED. She had a tough childhood however she managed to complete her form 5 whilst […]
Nancy Mbaura is a holder of a BSc Women & Gender Studies from the Women University in Africa (WUA) and a Zimbabwean, philanthropist and gender activist. She was born at […]
“When l saw our Council Gender Focal Person (GFP) presenting during the 2014 Local Government Summit in Masvingo I told myself that l can also do it but the question […]
Municipio de Mocimboa da Praia Study Case: Município no Fortalecimento da Mulher para Participação Activa na Integração do Género na Governação Local Study Case: “Políticas guiam o trabalho […]
Essayons de faire la différence Ratsimbazafy Lala Dervaele est une des bénéficiaires de la formation sur le renforcement des capacités des femmes candidates maires et conseillères menée par Gender Links […]
A good leader is a leader with people’s well-being at heart, who puts the interests of others before his or hers; one who would go an extra mile to help others.
Last year I joined Mrs Mapaya, the child care worker, during visits to underprivileged children. We visited the Mashate family where we found a single mother of four children. She narrated how she ended up being a single parent citing how her husband left her for a younger woman, leaving her stranded in their rural home with no means to fend for her children.
The first time I visited Single Quarters and General Barracks in Kadoma I came face to face with living conditions that I did not know people could live in. A family of more than three living in one room, sharing communal toilets which were not being cleaned and had no potable water. There was rampant abuse of girl children and women at the hands of men. This was a breeding ground of diseases, crime and child prostitution. As a leader I knew the task that lay ahead of me and that such issues had to be addressed if people were to have their basic human rights protected and promoted, including gender equality. I qualify to be a driver of change because of my passion, my contribution and my plans around gender issues, as well as my participation in gender programmes.
I am a human rights defender who has worked both in Malawi and Zambia since childhood. Being from a Christian background I grew up believing in God. I spent much of my time attending fellowship prayers with my fellow believers which motivated me to become interested in helping others achieve the purpose for which they were created. I decided to work for human rights when I was released from Zomba Mikuyu Prison having seen the conditions that I went through with other colleagues such as Chakufwa Chihana and Dr Orton Chirwa who died in prison, fighting for change in Malawi. The fight was about breaking the one party system for a multiparty government.
In Ward 2, where I am the councillor, there is a section of single quarters which sadly accommodates an average of six people in a single room i.e. mother, father and four children. This set up has always made it very difficult for parents in these houses to have any privacy. Mothers and fathers cannot be intimate freely as their children are in the same room. This has led to some men beating up their wives for withholding conjugal rights. I had to stop a man in my ward from beating his wife in the middle of the night and posed a question to the rest of the men as to how they would react if their sisters were being abused. Hence I advised all the men present to go back home and make a difference and stop gender based violence (GBV) in homes, workplaces and in their community.