Gender Management System

Victor Dagha Kaonga is a seasoned Malawian journalist and the National Director at Transworld Radio. (TWR). TWR is the oldest privately owned Christian radio station in the country. Interestingly, Kaonga’s name is not as famous as the radio programmes that he has been doing over the years. But how is this so? Kaonga is fond of running radio columns using a pseudonym, hence many people associate with the programme and the voice as opposed to the character.

Gender Links (GL) and its interventions and the SADC Gender Protocol were mere rhetoric to me before 2013. At first I thought that women were not important in decision making. Through my relationship with GL I have learnt to reshape people’s consciousness and to redefine social relations to create a women-centered culture.

I first met Gender Links at a workshop some time in 2006 or 2007 and since then my perspective has changed drastically, even though in my own way I have been fighting the disparity between boys and girls since early childhood.

In one way or another some English words we pick up at Gender Links regional summits and meetings end up being part of our vocabulary and, without noticing it, we use them even in meetings where the official language is Portuguese.

The gender focal point person for Chipata, Winfridah Chibanga, used to only hear about Gender Links from others until she became engaged with them through Chipata District Council when she was asked to do logistical arrangement for the COE’s village level meeting. While responsible for these logistical arrangements, she was asked to invite 25 people to a workshop, but to her surprise, more than a hundred participants turned up for the workshop.

Lydia Sambo, the Agriculture Extension Officer in the Ministry of Agriculture in Katete District, is a person who has enormous passion to improve the lives of women. Her first encounter with Gender Links was during the 16 days of Activism in 2011.

The beneficiary, Adraida Banda, is currently working as a Town Planner for Solwezi Municipal Council in the north western part of Zambia. She joined the council as a planning officer. The nature of her work mainly involves the coordination of developmental activities in the district as well as monitoring and evaluation of the same projects.

The beneficiary, Brian Kajoba, is a councillor for the Solwezi Municipal Council in North Western province of Zambia. He is also the deputy mayor for the same council.

I am a social services manager with Hurungwe Rural District Council (RDC) and I previously served as a general nurse under the Ministry of Health and Child Care’s district health promotions programme. I dedicated 14 years of my working life to community work and I have worked closely with both women and men.

I am the Director of Health and Environmental Health Services at Kadoma City Council in Zimbabwe. The catchment population of my department is 96 116 people. Women constitute 52% of the catchment population. We provide HIV and AIDS services, primary health care services, child health services and reproductive health services.

I am a manager by profession and I am in the middle management team at Beitbridge Town Council. We specialise in climate change projects where we utilise the effluent for farming activities so that it does not contaminate the international river, Limpopo, which supplies the town with drinking water. I am also the gender focal person for the council.

In 2011, RABEJAONA Lala Andrianarizava was a little surprised when Mrs RAVALORIAKA Eva, the Mayor of the Local Council of Manjakandriana, came to conduct training on gender in Andriambilany.