Shurugwi town council walks and talks gender

There was little knowledge about gender mainstreaming the Council did not have a gender policy and gender technical team. No workplace programmes on gender mainstreaming and gender based violence were being done. Statistics on council figures especially housing stands beneficiaries were not disaggregated according to sex and at one time all council committees were chaired by men only. Council in its entire history had never allocated a single cent to programmes to spearhead gender mainstreaming amongst its staff .All the work that involved hard labour was being done by men.However we have progressed well in a number of ways .Firstly, a Gender Technical Team (GTT) was put in place in trying to follow the COE concept The GTT is comprised of all the council departments, that is the Engineering department, Housing Department, Finance Department, Administration department and Audit Department. The District Head of the Women affairs, Gender and community development was also co-opted in, as an advisor.A process of Formulation and adoption of gender policy to guide in terms of gender equality and mainstreaming was done.There is marked great change from the last council where we had only male councillors chairing committees but from the current council all the three lady councillors who are in office are committee chairpersons (2) and the other one is vice council chairperson.Statistics now have to be disaggregated according to sex, workplace programmes specifically on gender mainstreaming are being done with full management support and Council now financially support gender programmes.We now have three ladies working as brick layers a move that has seen these women empowered because they can now earning a living without depending on their spouses. It is important to note that it is the GTT which advocated for the employment of women as bricklayers when the selection process was being done .Council is now in the process of revising all the policies so that they are gender aware because most of policies are discriminating for example most policies mentions especially the transport policy “he ” in their clauses and the GTT find this not gender sensitive.Council now have WASH (water sanitation and hygiene) community health clubs where each ward has members of not less than 30 each ward had two group. These health club members were capacitated in terms of water sanitation and hygiene and are also into projects that are economically empowering them. Majority of these health clubs are women. They are 720 members in all the 13 wards and only 9 are men. Council is now engaging men separately so that they appreciate the need to be in those clubs,