GCN recently reported to us about their activities for the last 6 months of 2008. Despite the challenges facing GCN and the people of Zimbabwe GCN continues to be effective in serving girls, albeit in new ways amidst the well-known turmoil in Zimbabwe.

While the government had restricted some of GCN’s activities, GCN reports they provided school fees for 81 girls, including orphans, underprivileged and those affected and infected by HIV/AIDS

As well as paying school fees for girls they are also providing emergency assistance such as food packs and sanitary supplies for girls living in desperate conditions.

The Hwange Empowerment Village, the shelter for abused or abandoned girls, also continues to provide limited services.

Nothing short of remarkable, GCN continues to provide a vision along with critically needed services for a brighter Zimbabwe.

GCN’s Girls Empowerment Clubs face tremendous challenges due to the difficult social and political context currently in Zimbabwe. The government passed a ban on public gatherings and a ban on NGOs carrying out their field operations. Due to the dangerous conditions, teachers refrained from attending schools. Club visits had to be suspended.

Thankfully, a compromise was reached to ensure the empowerment clubs continue functioning. GCN is providing one-on-one sessions with the club coordinators and club presidents, and conducting telephone support calls encouraging clubs to carry out their activities.

The challenges of the country make GCN’s work all the more important. GCN provides these girls with a safe place for counseling, support and empowerment while also providing them with opportunities for training, education, scholarships and employment. The current struggles have forced GCN to become more creative in addressing local challenges, and they are improving Girls Empowerment Clubs with less supervision.

Girl Child Network of Zimbabwe co-sponsored a conversational reception at the International AIDS Conference, August 3-8, 2008 in Mexico City to feature empowered girl children who shared what they have gained from being part of GCN’s girls’ empowerment clubs.

Currently there are about 60,000 girls involved with GCN activities, mainly through its girl empowerment clubs. These clubs provides girl members to with a local support network and a forum to voice their abuses, challenges, needs and successes. It is also through the girl empowerment clubs that GCN is carrying out leadership development to young girls who are club presidents.

An 18-year old GCN girl club member attending this reception at the International AIDS Conference expressed the following:
“I used to not be good in public speaking but because of GCN and its trainings I am able to do this now. I also used to think that only a boy child could do everything but now I know that I can also do anything that I set my mind to. Anything is possible for me too.”

While Zimbabwe is facing many challenges, GCN is still operating providing critical support and education to girl children in Zimbabwe.

In the past year, GCN’s Community Development and Empowerment Program organized several activities for its HIV-prevention campaigns that included sensitization of traditional and church leaders on gender, HIV/AIDS and sexual abuse.

GCN organized a workshop with 44 traditional and church leaders in Chiredzi to impart knowledge on girl child abuse, gender and HIV/AIDS. Participants were encouraged to participate in a dialogue about the above-mentioned topics and their relation to the patriarchy that exists in their communities. As a result of this workshop, there was an increased commitment of traditional and religious leaders to reduce girl child abuse.

GCN Award Update

Betty Makoni, founder of Girl Child Network (GCN) in Zimbabwe was awarded the 2008 Ginetta-Sagan Award for Women's and Children's Rights.

“We are transforming victims into survivors, survivors into leaders. We help girls stand on their own feet and fight back against violence and exploitation.” Betty Makoni.

This prestigious award, overseen by Amnesty International, comes at a time of even greater uncertainty in Zimbabwe. The results of the Zimbabwe Presidential election is now heading off to a run-off on June 27, in the midst of growing violence in the country.

Since the beginning of this year’s project, GCN has conducted emergency intervention and rescue operations for 43 girls in the Hwange District. These interventions include a 24-hour response team and removal of the girl from her home or the abusive situation. These abuses include sexual, emotional, physical, economic and neglect. Acquiring fuel and transport at all hours of the night and day is no small feat in Zimbabwe these days, and yet GCN staff is still able to respond to the needs of the girls in the rural community outside Victoria Falls. During this time, GCN took note of an increase in sexual abuse cases perpetrated by relatives likely due to the increased economic strain on the people of Zimbabwe.

In addition, during this time, 58 girls were provided with school fees. One of these girls, GCN is proud to say is now writing her exams for university entrance (called A levels) after being supported by GCN since she was in Form 1 (the equivalent of 6th grade in the US). She is also a rape survivor.

At this time, GCN also continues to provide meals on a daily basis for 40 girls at the Empowerment Center.

HIV-prevention campaign to commemorate World AIDS Day

To commemorate World AIDS Day, 2007, GCN held its first Girls Speak Out Conference outside Harare in the town of Chitungwiza where over 900 girls from 10 provinces spoke out about HIV and AIDS. This was a unique event that allowed the voices of girls to be heard in an environment that is typically relegated to experts in the field and international donors.

One notable request from several girls representing the rural areas is the need for their schools to incorporate a Volunteer Counseling and Testing (VCT) center to normalize the act of testing for children and to enable them to have the opportunity to have access to testing.

Most girls who are raped when they are young may not know if they are HIV positive until they are over 18. For example, one girl spoke out about being raped when she was 6, and though her parents were told that she was HIV-positive as a result of the rape, they did not know how to tell her until she got sick and went for Voluntary Counseling and Testing (VCT) when she was 18.

The conference also reveled the extent to which girls who are now the head of their household are conducting home-based care without training for their sick parents or siblings. This reality identifies a key need in the rural communities to train these children how to protect themselves and properly care for their family members.

Since the conference, this girls have returned home knowing that they are not alone in this struggle and for the first time, the public heard first hand about the issues they face.

The complex situation in which these girls find themselves is not without hope if those in the field of HIV and child rights begin to listen to the needs from the children themselves. GCN continues to take the bold and innovative steps to see that the local Zimbabwean community as well as the international community begins to listen.

The girls agreed to the following declaration in attendance:

We, the participants at the Girls National HIV/AIDS Speak Out Conference. Being aware of the dangers posed by the continued spread of HIV to the well being of the girl child.

Taking cognizance of the efforts of all sectors of society from Government, NGOs and private individuals in trying to reduce the impact of HIV/AIDS on the aforementioned girls.

Yet still recognizing that girls of the ages of the participants are among the most affected by HIV/AIDS, do make the following Declaration:

1.   That the media be sensitive in its portrayal of HIV /AIDS issues especially where they concern girls.
2.   The media should publish for all ages and not focus on adults. This also refers to the adverts carried in the media about HIV.
3.   Home based care programs should be strengthened and involve all sectors of society to allow girls space to attend school as they are spending a lot of school time taking care of relatives.
4.   Programs that fight discrimination and stigma must be strengthened, especially in school, and specific AIDS programs must be introduced into the school curriculum and taught by specially qualified staff.
5.   HIV education and awareness programs on abuse should begin in Grade Zero to raise awareness of HIV and abuse from the earliest learning age.
6.   There is need to increase awareness about other forms of transmission of HIV, not to focus on sexual transmission.
7.   Children’s income generating programs especially in school clubs be promoted and strengthened to allow children to gain financial capacity too care for the needs of fellow children infected and affected.
8.   Programs that benefit orphans and vulnerable children, especially those living with HIV should be scaled up.
9.   Money allocated to HIV/AIDS programs for children should be used transparently and be accounted for properly
10.   All cases of rape and child abuse should be treated swiftly and equally without considering the position or influence of the alleged perpetrator.
11.   Access to Post Exposure Prophylaxis should be a right for all victims of rape.
12.   Testing and counseling centers should engage children as peer counselors to enable children to speak out better.
13.   Children living with HIV /AIDS should have access to playing a meaningful role in programs that affect them.
14.   Discussion on HIV issues and the status of members should be openly discussed from national to family level to demystify the issues.
15.   All organizations that work in the field of HIV/AIDS should work closely together between themselves and with the national programs in order to derive maximum benefits for the girls who need the interventions.


Agreed to on this 2nd day of December 2007 at Seke Teachers’ College, Chitungwiza.

Throughout a normal week in the Hwange District of Zimbabwe, 25 girls between the ages of 6 to 18 years visit GCN’s Hwange Empowerment Village. The Village provides a temporary shelter for girls rescued from rape and child abuse as well as a center for education and counseling and a place where girls can go after school. In these centers, the girls are fed, they receive basic health care and sanitary napkins, their uniforms are washed and they have a place to do their homework for school.

According to GCN staff, indicators of empowerment for these girls includes the ability to express themselves through poem writing and drama classes for self-esteem development as well as the ability to express their needs to their teachers and parents.

Empowerment Village staff recently held a Sports Day at the Village that included netball, three-legged races and egg tosses as a way for the girls to play and have some fun. They hope to use such techniques to build confidence for these girls, many of whom, have low self-esteem. All the girls come from poor backgrounds, and unfortunately many are now the head of their household, responsible for younger siblings, because they have lost their parents to AIDS.