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Anna Mguni

Sikhumbuzo Moyo, Senior Sports Reporter
THE Zimbabwe Olympic Committee (ZOC) has partnered with local charitable organisation Tambai Zimbabwe Trust to empower female sportspersons through the Women and Girls Empowerment Sports (WAGES) festival.

The event will be held at Prince Edward High School, Girls High School, Queen Elizabeth School and Allan Wilson School in Harare from today up to Sunday.

WAGES festival is a package of sport participation, fitness activities, information, education and awareness about gender based violence (GBV), healthy living, Olympic values, anti-doping, HIV/Aids, non-communicable diseases and the rights of women and girls.

The Festival will draw participants from schools, community clubs, tertiary institutions, mines, farms and uniformed services around Zimbabwe.

As part of its support, ZOC has agreed to bring top Zambian female sports administrator Brenda Chipande, who is executive director of the Zambia National Olympic Committee, to present a thesis titled “Gender-based violence in Zambian Sport: Prevalence and Prevention” that she wrote towards her Masters in Sport Science with the Norwegian School of Sport Sciences. The objective of her research was to educate coaches and athletes about gender-based violence in sport and to develop recommendations towards reducing harassment and abuse in sport.

“ZOC has always been at the forefront of living the gospel of female empowerment through sports as can be seen by the top positions females have occupied within ZOC over years. Busi Chindove was for many years vice-president of the ZOC board and now we have Olympian Kirsty Coventry also in the same capacity. This is over and above many other initiatives aimed at strengthening the position of women through our Women in Sport Commission.

“So when Tambai Zimbabwe invited us on board, we felt the need to complement their efforts by bringing in Brenda to particularly address the issue of gender-based violence in sport, an issue that is at the centre of our latest efforts to raise increased awareness on the need for a safe and secure environment in sport for women,” ZOC chief executive officer Anna Mguni said.

Tambai Zimbabwe board of trustees representative and vice-chairperson of the WAGES Festival Committee Melody Gondo thanked ZOC for bringing Brenda to the festival.

“We are very grateful to ZOC for responding to our call to partner us by bringing Brenda all the way from Zambia. Her knowledge and experience on gender-based violence will help attract the attention of duty bearers, policy makers and opinion leaders so that measures are enacted to address the issue. The coming in of ZOC will also bring to the fore, years of effort we have invested in making the WAGES festival the ‘go to’ platform that every woman and girl in Zimbabwe would like to attend and be associated with,” said Gondo.