rainbownewszambia PSAf Message on International Women’s Day 2013 The board, management and staff of Panos Institute Southern Africa (PSAf) join the world in commemorating the 2013 International Women’s Day. This is a special day not only for women in Southern Africa and the World over, but for everyone who is committed to working towards enhancing sustainable development in the region. As PSAf, we believe that women are the pillar of the development of any society, yet they are still marginalised in terms of accessing opportunities and platforms to enable them play that role. Most of the development problems the region faces are a result of this challenge. Our work seeks to amplify voices of the poor and marginalised citizens to drive their development, and our experience shows that women are in the majority of people who are marginalised when it comes to the distribution of resources. PSAf ensures that across all programmes, gender issues are mainstreamed. Throughout the implementation of our programmes, gender equality in terms of access to and control over resources is enhanced. However given the current gender agenda trends in the region, PSAf pays specific attention to issues of women and girls to ensure that their participation is promoted and that their needs are taken on board. PSAf programme officer facilitating a discussion among women on health issues. Our community radio interventions seek to make it more possible for women to take part in development debate PSAf programme officer facilitating a discussion among women on health issues. Our community radio interventions seek to make it more possible for women to take part in development debate Our Strategic Plan for 2012 to 2016 espouses our deliberate thrust towards gender equity and women’s empowerment. As we commemorate International Women’s Day, we would also like to reemphasise our commitment to the 2013 theme, The Gender Agenda: Gaining Momentum through our engendered programming efforts. Our work approaches promote gender equality, with particular focus on ensuring that women are not disadvantaged in any activities or processes meant to foster development. We commemorate this day at a time when women across Southern Africa are going through a lots of challenges relating to maternal health, high burden of such diseases as malaria, malnutrition and unbalanced systems for accessing and controlling resources. Gender based violence, and in particular violence against women continues to rise in Southern Africa. Every day we hear sad stories of women and girls being abused, raped, and even killed. PSAf condemns, in the strongest of terms, such barbaric and retrogressive tendencies. We urge all the men to rise, provide mentorship to fellow men who abuse women and protect the womenfolk. Women across Southern Africa currently have limited access to communication and information channels. Our work has also shown that there are still huge gaps in the media’s coverage of issues in a gender balanced manner. Despite some slight improvement over the years, women’s voices are still regrettably low in the media. That is why as PSAf, we are working on supporting the creation of these platforms for engagement, and to reduce the digital divide that currently exists between the rich and the poor, and between men and women. We are doing this by providing technical support in the form of voice recorders, radios and other gadgets to radio listening clubs and other community based structures to enable them to drive debate on development. One such intervention is the Radio Platform for Community Development, which PSAf is implementing in Malawi, Zambia and Mozambique with funding from the Open Society Initiative for Southern Africa (OSISA). The project aims to empower the poor and marginalised communities in the three countries with development information to allow their effective participation in development processes. In the implementation of the project, PSAf and OSISA will make deliberate efforts to address the challenges that women face in accessing development information. Through the project, PSAf will build the capacity of community radio stations to develop content through radio listening club, interface community members, especially women with policy makers through the community radio platform, and facilitate networking and community development information sharing among community radio stations and initiatives both at national and regional levels. We want a Southern Africa where women have adequate access to channels through which they can freely express themselves and participate in the development discourse. For this to be possible, we therefore call on different stakeholders in Governments, implementing partners, private sector, communities, civil society and other stakeholders to make deliberate efforts to ensure that the interests of women are catered for across all facets of development. We all have a responsibility to ensure the empowerment of women in order to promote gender equality and gender parity. We wish all the women a blessed and happy International Women’s Day 2013! Like · · Share. Pan African Radio 105.1 FM Lusaka Zambia Lubinda dares Dora Siliya By Derrick Sinjela Kabwata Member of Parliament Given Lubinda says he is grateful to ...See More
Posted on: Thu, 15 Aug 2013 10:32:56 +0000