Legal and rights awareness

Loveness Gandawa began a poultry project in 2012. She started with a production capacity of 50 birds per six weeks. She later increased the capacity to 100 birds in 2013. The upgrading of the business coincided with her encounter with Gender Links (GL). She invested the money she received as an honorarium for attending the workshop into the business and she increased the production capacity to 150 birds. The profit she realised after selling chickens enabled her to venture into cross border trading. She started purchasing clothing material and footwear from South Africa, Zambia and Botswana for resale in Zimbabwe.

Maria Mboene is a woman who suffered verbal violence from her husband because she grew up believing that once a woman is married she has to respect and stay with the husband no matter what happens in the house. She did know about her rights, she could not do anything but stay at home suffering in silence.

In 1983 her husband left her with six children to take care of. From that moment Maria had to choose between getting another man to sustain her and her kids and finding a way to survive by herself. Because she did not want to go through all the things she had been through with her former husband, she chose to start a business

Itai Makara is a beneficiary of the entrepreneurship programme who resides in Tshovani Township in Chiredzi. Before her encounter with Gender Links (GL) she used to be a person who could not distinguish between right and wrong. She said that her status was a result of the lack of relevant knowledge and a clearly defined direction. She found it very difficult to be independent when it came to making important decisions. This was largely because she lacked confidence.

Patricia is a young gender activist living in the urban council of Moramanga, a council located at 110 kilometres from the capital of Antananarivo. She encountered Gender Links for the first time at one of the workshops organised in the council for the centre of excellence initiative. At that time, she was a member of a local women’s association. She then joined the entrepreneurship training in 2013.

Before the training Patricia did not have stable revenue. She was doing laundry and cleaning for her neighbors and the money she gained was just enough to buy food. Moreover, her husband was always absent and he did not support her household needs. Patricia had never thought her life would change later.

She is a young Mosotho woman who survives by selling fruit and vegetables at the taxi rank. She has been doing that for a very long time now and this is how she manages to pay her children’s school fees. Cheche was married to a man that she did not know at all, she saw him for the first time when he was already her husband. They lived together without any problems for almost two years as she learnt to love and appreciate him as her partner. He was working on the mines in South Africa meaning that most of the time he was not around and Cheche was the one looking after their children, ensuring that they could go to school. Her husband stopped coming home and Cheche was struggling with the children and everybody knew that it was really hard for her and that is why her councillor contacted her first when he heard about the Gender Links (GL) entrepreneurship programme.

Verosoa Patricia is member of the committee for the fight against violence in the urban council of Manjakandriana, part of the Centre of Excellence (COE) process since 2010. The urban council of Manjakandriana is located 50 kilometres from the capital and has an engaged woman as a mayor. Thanks to the mayor’s leadership, the council is implementing several projects for the improvement of women’s status, especially in the domain of health, women’s access to land and finance, and other gender related activities.

Celestine is a 45 year-old woman, married with two children. Her business focusses on selling vegetables and fish in the local market. Coming from a modest family, Celestine has been used to a precarious way of living since her childhood.

During her married life she endured all kinds of violence inflicted on her by her husband. Overwhelmed by the harshness of her daily life, she decided to find an activity that would improve her income. It was during that time that she encountered Ms Rasoaminiry, counsellor of the council. Ms Rasoamaniry encouraged her to participate in the training offered by GL.

“I would like to thank Gender Links for the work that has been done in empowering women with business skills, not only in Mandlakazi, but also in other councils. Although I recognise what GL has done and is still doing, I encourage GL to extend the programme for more councils because, based on my experience, there are many women out there who need to be trained in order to grow socially and economically. GL should continue training, monitoring and evaluating as it is doing now to see and listen to the changes happening in women’s lives”.

During these workshops she learnt a lot about gender based violence and as we speak she is aware and assertive about issues of gender and human rights. It was unbelievable, but with grace she won the battle and even now quite a number of women ask her how she managed to survive that abusive relationship. She is always delighted to testify how GL helped her out of that miserable life. She is now a self-assured woman with dignity, all because of GL and she constantly provides guidance to these women on issues around fighting GBV at both a personal and community level. Currently the women consider her as their role model and some of them now live positive lives, free from GBV.

“My life has really changed, so much so that I am able to encourage other women to change their lives. I have been sharing the knowledge I gained from Gender Links about business plans and how they work with the women from the community. With this knowledge I was encouraged to go out there and ask for funds from the government to start my business. I have gained high self-esteem and that makes me believe in everything I doÀ says Olebile Moesi from Serowe in Botswana.

“During our first training with Gender Links, we were encouraged to share our experiences as a way of healing. One woman told us her experience, it was very touching and funny because she said her husband would beat her for allowing her parents to visit them but when the parents were there he acted as if everything was fine and he complained to them about not visiting. This made me realise that my life’s challenges were not as bad as I learnt that other people are more abused, especially by their boyfriends or husbands. Money is always the main cause of this,À says Kelebogile.

When she finished her entrepreneurship training, she met different people who were abused and some believed that drinking alcohol was a solution. She shared with them her experiences and how she got help and she also shared with them the knowledge she gained from Gender Links. She saw a lot of change in some of them because they stopped drinking and they are getting help from social workers. She is helping others to learn how to do beading because that is the business she is currently doing.

I started the entrepreneurship programme in 2014 at Good Hope and I attended all the phases of training starting with “IÀ stories workshop. My best moment was when I took part in the Botswana national summit in Gaborone where I represented my council Good Hope. I came second in the existing business category. It was very exciting and it was my best moment. I also remember the Minister of Labour and Home Affairs, Rre Batshu, who awarded the prizes, saying he would like to do his hair at my salon and everyone laughed.

I have learnt that many women are abused and I also learnt a lot from Gender Links about abuse. I encouraged women from our community in Good Hope who can do hairdressing to form a group of three and we opened a salon. With the knowledge gained from Gender Links I taught them about record keeping, budgeting, management skills and how to handle money. I also taught women who were interested in learning how to do hairdressing. Since we started from nothing I have done everything in my power to keep the profit and use it for growing the business.