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Girl Child Network Welcomes
You
Empowering the Girl Child, Powering
the nations
For the girl child, the sky is the
limit
The stories we listened to made us bleed inside,
the genital wounds we later had to help nurse evoked us, the long
distances we traveled every day and night to educate girls on their
rights made us strong , the songs of joy and sorrow the girls sang
made us more passionate, everything to do with girlhood and the fact
that we were there for the girls pushed us to do even more and more
from the heart ,soul, mind and all. The fact that we finally claimed
the girls` spaces where the girls now live and develop free of
violence makes it imperative that we share the great tidings (GCN
Director and Founder Betty Makoni)
The situation of the girl child in Zimbabwe and
the world over is a depiction of so much suffering, subjection,
oppression and deprivation. The girl child is born only to be
surrounded by social facts which so heavily and overbearingly impose
themselves on her such that what she has to do is to adjust and
adapt to the hostile environment and curve her own world out of
survival.
As an organization, Girl Child Network (GCN) was
born out of the helplessness and hopelessness of the girl child with
a view to be a willing tool for use by the girl child in her quest
for emancipation. When we tell our story as an organization, it is
not a story of luxury and neither is it one of tears and dejection.
It is a story of what has been and what is to be.
Our story is about the reality we and all the
girls in Zimbabwe find ourselves in struggles in our determination
to arrive to the ultimate destination of a world accommodative of
the girl child. We now here under set out to chronicle our story,
our long tortuous road we are and where we take our destination to
be. The Girl Child Empowerment Strategy which is the foundation
stage for all future women has and continues to score a first in
breeding a new breed of future women who are not victims but victors
in all social, political and economic spheres of life.
Sarah, Age
10
Mureverwi, Chihota |
“The Girl
Child”
They regard us as special,
Yet they abuse
us culturally.
We are the slaves of the home,
We cook,
clean the house,
And look after children.
We are never
given the chance to go to school.
We are used to appease
the evil spirits.
We are forced to marry in times of
hunger.
But why the girl child and not the boy
child?
Parents, you need to change your attitude towards
girls.
Give us equal opportunities
And we will prove you
wrong.
Parents, if you educate a girl
You educate a
nation.
We need our nation to be
educated. |
Our Funding
Partners
Novib | Firelight Foundation
| Idex | Global Fund for Women | Pacific Institute for Women’s
Health
CIDA | Egmont Trust | New Field Foundation | US Embassy
self help projects | UNICEF | American Jewish World
Service |
