Investing in young girls is smart economics

Just recently I came across an interesting article written by Zimbabwe Women’s Resource Centre (ZRC) zwrcn@zwrcn.org.zw/ in Zimbabwe talking about the value of investing in women and girls. Immediately I read this article, it reminded me of the great work Chindwin Home Based Care is currently focusing its energy to build a strong and resilient movement of women who willing to transform their lives to be a force of change. This might seem so dramatic when you read it, but with every small step we take, we continue the journey to our “north star” to ensure that women and children live in a just world where their rights are respected. So how do we go about our work? Similar to ZWRC we are bring young girls in front of the line by putting them bank into school and giving them an opportunity to build their self esteem and long term prosperity. Because there are other families who still side line girls, we are embarking on a vigorous campaign to work with Parents Teachers Associations (PTA’s) to ensure that communities are in sync with our plan to put back over 50 young girls back to school- Yes, this can happen. Women from resource poor families, spend time worrying where the next meal will come from, how to feed their children and let alone, their own personal needs. This already diminishes their self esteem and put them vulnerable in society. HIV and AIDS is the number one the need to face, as some of them end up adopting risky copying strategies in order to survive such as prostitution, and getting married into polygamous marriages. To curb these challenges, Chindwin Home Based Care SLA is working with women by providing small but innovative micro enterprise grants and offering training on sustainable livelihoods. For more information on our work, please visit the website at www.sloansassociation.org