WUNRN
A WOMAN, ONCE A GIRL
BREAKING SILENCE
Betty
Makoni, Founder and Director of Girl Child Network (GCN) Zimbabwe is also Chief
Executive Officer of Girl Child Network Worldwide Girl Child Network Worldwide
is an organization that champions the rights of the girl child globally. http://www.girlchildnetworkworldwide.org/about/
A
Woman, Once a Girl - Book: The time to break silence is right here and now.
Womanhood and motherhood is under attack. This book gives a holistic
empowerment package to those feeling hopeless, rejected, abused, and undermined
in any way. The poems are real-life experiences that you can always derive
inspiration from. A mother experienced violence, and her daughter, aged six,
stood up and urged her to report. She suppressed her voice and silenced her
poetically with a “Shh, we don’t say domestic things in public.” A few years
later, the mother died in cold blood after heavy beatings by her husband. It
led Betty Makoni to be a mother at age nine, and the book takes readers through
a journey of inner pain that is unleashed when she becomes a globally acclaimed
activist.
The
journey Betty Makoni has trod leaves permanent and visible footsteps. Today,
her poetry book takes a new approach to self-empowerment by presenting breaking
culture of silence—poetic prose verses in short story form. Easy to read and
yet very powerful for reflection and evoking you. The stories are personal
experiences, and there is a poem for everyone to easily connect to a situation
similar to their own experiences. The poetic prose storybook is a forerunner of
Betty Makoni’s official much-awaited biography. Her trials and tribulations as
she tried to be a woman, a leader, a wife, and a mother and balance all these
roles is an open testimony. Transitioning from being a girl to becoming a woman
is with hurdles and hardships, and A Woman, Once a Girl: Breaking Silence takes
a sigh of relief that mission is accomplished as one overcomes gender
inequality and wars being fought by their bodies and breaks vicious cycles of
poverty and gender-based violence. Using simple poetic verse, she has shared
everyday stories that may be taken for granted and yet can undermine an
individual’s abilities. This book is for anyone defending their rights and
those of the most vulnerable. It speaks to you to keep positive energy.