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| Back row from Left to Right: Nafi Chinery, Capacity Building Officer (AWDF), Eunice Mugorongi, CCCD Board member, Zeytuuna Abdella Azasoo, Monitoring & Evaluation Officer (AWDF) Front row from Left to Right: Pastor Febie Chuma, CCCD Board member, Gertrude Pswarayi, CCCD Director |
The African Women’s Development Fund, a grant-making foundation which supports local, national and regional organisations in Africa working towards women’s empowerment recently made a visit to the Creative Centre for Communication and Development in Bulawayo, Zimbabwe to assess the organisation’s programmes, implementation and its capacity.
The assessment visit which took place on April 18 was part of AWDF’s annual monitoring and evaluation routine monitoring and evaluation plans which enables AWDF to assess projects funded by the organisation.
During the assessment visit, the Creative Centre for Communication and Development had the opportunity to share some of their project success stories particularly successes related to the project funded by the AWDF. The AWDF officials, Zeytuna Abdella Azasoo the Monitoring & Evaluation Officer and Nafi Chinery, the Capacity Building Officer also had the opportunity to interact with some of the Creative Centre for Communication and Development’s Board members, director and beneficiaries to learn more about the successes, challenges and future plans of the organisation.
During the 16 Days of Activism campaign in 2010, AWDF awarded the Creative Centre for Communication and Development, a small grant to conduct an advocacy campaign that used a Free Open Source Software (FOSS) called Freedom Fone, developed in Zimbabwe by Kubatana Trust and awarded a Knight Frank award in 2008. The Freedom Fone provides for round the clock personal access to information. It uses mobile phones and marries it with interactive audio programming – allowing users to conduct SMS polls, collect user generated audio content via a voice-message system, and allowing callers to listen to content on the cell phones.
The project had a big impact in the community. The project resulted in increased access to information to women and girls on issues of Gender Based Violence. The project offered women a platform to reveal GBV cases that they experience without fear of intimidation and harassment. Women and girls particularly from the church now have a platform to get information and help.
