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Scores of teachers drawn from the country’s 10 provinces will benefit from the programme, which is set to start in January next year.

The project will be launched under the theme “Teachers Advancing a Rights Culture (TARC)”, and will run until December next year.

It will also focus on gender and children rights.

In a statement, Zimta President, Ms Tendai Chikowore said the training would strengthen relations between teachers’ unions and community stakeholders in advocating for workers’ rights.

“More than 500 teachers are expected to benefit from ZIMTA and AFT project, which aims to build capacity of teachers to promote, defend and exercise workers’ rights. The ZIMTA-AFT workers’ rights project’s objectives include increasing teachers’ capacity to promote workers’ rights and encourage civic participation, defend workers’ rights and improve relations between teachers’ unions and community stakeholders through collaboration,” said Ms Chikowore.

“The Zimta-AFT project seeks to strengthen the union by engaging teachers and other education workers in civic education about workers’ rights and the tools needed for them to know, understand and defend their rights.”

She said the input of teachers in this exercise would be influential in addressing workers’ rights abuses.

“The participation of the teachers in this exercise is expected to transform their lives to a point where, they become true defenders of their rights, because they will lead others and be instrumental in highlighting workers’ rights abuses. However, as the project unfolds, Zimta shall work with other stakeholders, who specialise in labour issues to ensure that workers’ rights are protected,” said Ms Chikowore.

She said information would be spread to all parts of the country once the training is completed.

“Workers’ rights awareness campaigns will be followed by training sessions on how teachers can defend their rights and assist others to defend their rights at the workplace. Members’ capacities to defend rights shall be enhanced to enable teachers to represent each other and move further into communities in Zimbabwe to promote and defend workers’ rights,” said Ms Chikowore.

She said material on workers’ rights would be produced and distributed in strategic locations to ensure access by union members.

Ms Chikowore said for nearly two decades, Zimta and AFT have worked in solidarity to advance the interests of teachers and public education through a strong teacher union voice.