CCCD takes GBV campaign to churches

BULAWAYO: Churches are an important agent in the socialization process, helping young and old people to be self aware, knowledgeable and skilled to deal with various issues and challenges that emerge in the course of life.

This was said by Brother Mehluli Nkabinde during the launch of the 16 Days of Activism Against Gender Based Violence campaign at the Apostolic Faith Mission in Zimbabwe (AFM) in Woodville on Sunday. The campaign was organized by the Creative Centre for Communication and Development (CCCD). Brother Nkabinde said that the Bible defined the basis of women and men relationship, yet many people, including those from the church were actively involved in perpetuating Gender Based Violence in their families, churches and communities.

“The Bible talks about love, mutual understanding and respect for one another between couple, yet there are a lot of areas where women are treated as second class citizens. People should not twist some Verses from the Bible for their selfish ends,” said Brother Nkabinde.
Violence against women affects individuals, families and communities around the world every day. Quite often religion is used as an excuse for this violence and yet the central messages of Christianity, Islam and other major religions instruct believers to respect the sanctity of peaceful and loving relationships.
The regional theme for the 2010 campaign is Mutual Respect and Non-Violence: Its part of every religion. The 2010 Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life Report found Sub-Saharan Africa to be one of the most religious places in the world with 90% of people in the region saying that religion is important in their lives. Therefore with Faith as its anchor, the 2010 Campaign calls on believers, faith based communities, organisations and religious leaders to speak out against violence against women.
Consequences of Violence against women affect every member of society and yet it continues with impunity in many communities across the region. A 2005 World Health Organisation (WHO) multi-country study on Women’s Health and Domestic Violence against women reported that in rural Ethiopia and Tanzania, 49% and 47% of ever-partnered women report experiencing physical violence from an intimate partner in their lifetime.
Speaking at the same occasion, Pastor Farayi Bganya said that Gender Based Violence was a big challenge for the church and encouraged couples to always use dialogue as a way of resolving differences.
During the campaign, drama performances were used to highlight some of the types of Gender Based Violence that are a common occurrence across the world. The campaign coincided with a harrowing global story that appeared on Sky News where a father from Argentina raped his daughter for 30 years resulting in 10 children from the incestuous relationship.

The Creative Centre for Communication and Development (CCCD) is a charitable non-governmental organisation advancing communication rights of marginalised and vulnerable people through building their communication capacities and advocacy skills in a creative way to systematically address human rights and all other fundamental freedoms.

The organisation has lined up a number of activities targeting local churches in an effort to raise awareness on Gender Based Violence.

CCCD takes 16 Days campaign to the church



16 Days of Activism working group

CCCD sets up a working group to spearhead the 16 Days of Activism against Gender based violence in Churches in Bulawayo, Zimbabwe. The team comprise of 14 women, five girls, two boys and three men. The working group has identified four local churches where workshops will be conducted. The official launch of the campaign will be held at the Apostolic Faith Mission and the last workshop will be held at Noah’s Ark Ministries. The working group has developed a communication strategy to effectively deliver behaviour change messages. We will keep you updated of our campaign activities.

CCCD participates in Ideas Festival

   


CCCD exhibits at the 2010
Ideas Festival held in Bulawayo



THE Creative Centre for Communication and Development (CCCD), in partnership with 63 civil society organisations in Zimbabwe took part in the annual Ideas Festival. The Festival lasted for three days and run under the theme Towards a Democratic Transition. The Reform Agenda. CCCD took the opportunity to highlight gender inequality and the absence of a communication rights culture as major factors that militate against democratic reforms. Currently, Zimbabwe is in the process of writting a new Constitution. Vey few women are actively participating in this process.



Project gets recognition

Our project, "Bringing Voices in from the Margins" funded by the World Association for Christian Communication (WACC) was recently featured on the Communication Initiative website http://www.comminit.com/en/node/323311/38 and the Soul Beat, a bi-weekly e-magazine with a subscriber base of over 15 000 from across Africa and globally http://www.comminit.com/africa/soul-beat-archives.html

Communication Rights Manual

As we wind down the project "Bring Voices in from the Margins" we are finalising a communication rights manual. The team working to formulate this manual is finalising the content of the manual. The manual is based on our work. It gives NGOs and CBOs a guide on how to replecate or implement similar prokects aimed at recognising and upholding communication rights. We hope to share this annual with other NGOs and CBOs locally, regionally and internationally.

Creative Communication Clubs

Creative communication clubs continued with their activities. Each of the four clubs managed to hold two meetings. The meetings were aimed at changing the behaviour, attitudes and perceptions that infringe communication rights of people at grassroots level and to improve access to accurate information about communication rights at grassroots level. The clubs empower HIV positive women and adolescent girls with life-skills (assertive behaviour, communication skills, and self confidence) to enable them to articulate and defend their communication right.

Improving access to information for women and girls

Women and girls continued with their Computer Training sessions. The number of marginalized women and girls wishing to participate in the program continues to grow. Some men are also interested in joining the program. Armed with computer skills, marginalised women and girls will be able to enjoy their communications rights with unrestricted access to sexual and reproductive health information from the World Wide Web.

Building the self-confidence of people living with HIV/AIDS

An advocacy workshop was organized to increase the target groups’ communication skills with a focus on: presentation skills, system of argumentation, ability to speak in front of the public, self articulation, increase self-confidence and self esteem, increase of tolerance towards different opinions and negotiation skills. A guest speaker, Mrs. Beauty Ngwenya was invited to lead the talk. Mrs. Ngwenya is a local HIV/AIDS activist and a member of the Zimbabwe National Network of People Living with HIV (ZNNP+) and has been living with the HIV virus for more than fifteen years.

Commemorating International Women’s Day

As part of efforts to network with Government and a variety of Non-governmental Organisations (NGOs) to highlight Communication Rights, the Creative Centre for Communication and Development (CCCD) took part in commemorations to mark International Women’s Day. The commemorations were organized by the Ministry of Gender and Women’s Affairs. Several government ministries, departments and the civil society took part in the commemorations.

Women need Family Planning education

The increasing frequency of computer lessons for women and girls have exposed one big issue that hinder women from pursuing productive careers outside the home.
Unplanned pregnancies, poor child spacing and teenage pregnancies have seen a high number of women turning up for lessons with children or heavy with pregnancy. The result is poor participation and limited concentration.
The Creative Centre for Communcation and Development's computer literacy programme is exposing women and girls to computers while developing their professional lives and increasing their access to information and their power to use and control ICTs.
One of the women who attended the training has already secured a job in an ICT shop where she is responsible for typing documents, photocopying, printing and binding documents for clients.

Communication Rights Dialogue session

This Communication Rights Dialouge session brought together people from the church, media, governement ministries, public institutions, NGOs, FBOs and Human Rights groups.
The Dialogue session focused on the history of Human Rights, challenges faced by local communities in exercising their rights and what pwople can do to create an enabling environment for the exercising of human rights. We also looked at Sexual and Reproductive Health Rights and their universal application. We also used the 2009 GBV poster to focus our discussion on building and recognising communication rights in Zimbabwe.

Family Day_16 Days of Activism

We actively took part in the 2009 16 Days Days of Activism Against Violence Against Women. We organised a family day aimed at encouraging communication within families. We also engaged parents and children to freely discussed Gender Based Violence in their community.

During the day poetry, music and theatre were used as the main communication tools. Men were involved as they are key partners in ending violence against women and promoting women's communication rights.

Building and Recognizing Communication Rights in Zimbabwe

From November 2009 to date, the Creative Centre for Communication and Development has been training women and girls to use computers. We are teaching them basic computer skills in order to increase their ability to harness the power of INformation and Communication Technologies (ICTs) to advance their communication rights.

We initially conducted a needs assessment at the beginning of Novemebr 2009. The needs assessment revealed that 95 percent of the women and girls had never used a computer. The few who had used a computer were not confident enough to use them to advance their communication rights and other human rights.

During the same month, we initiated a training programme solely aimed at teaching these women and girls to use computers. We taught them to use Mictosoft Word, Excel and PowerPoint. Once they master these programmes, we will teach them to how to use the Internet and Web 2.0 to enable them to actively participate on other social networks.

Due to limited space, we have converted a veranda into a "Computer Lab". We have three computers and the women and gilrs that we are training have lessons five times a week.