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Rejoyce Sibanda, Chronicle Reporter

BULAWAYO City Council (BCC) recently held a symposium to commemorate International Women’s Day (IWD), which is celebrated every year on March 8.

IWD is a global day celebrating the social, economic, cultural and political achievements of women.

The symposium ran under the theme, “Digital Innovation and Technology for Gender Equality”.

The event revolved around celebrating women’s entrepreneurial achievements and increasing their visibility through innovative strategies that empower and build sustainable future female leaders.

Various organisations, women entrepreneurs, representatives from Government ministries, departments and agencies, teachers, women and young girls graced the occasion.

During the symposium, several issues were highlighted with young girls and women being encouraged to take up Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics subjects in their academic careers.

In a speech read on his behalf by the Schools Inspector responsible for Guidance and Counselling, Mrs Lavinia Moyo, Bulawayo Provincial Education Director, Mr Benard Mazambane said local students who pursue STEM careers remain small, relative to the market demand.

He said girls, women and adolescents represent untapped human capital, that if leveraged, could enhance the STEM workforce in the country.

“While all genders face barriers in STEM fields, these are glaring for girls and women. Statistics still reveal scarcity of women in STEM careers regardless of the effort exerted by the likes of Global Innovation through Science and Technology (GIST) and many others in an endeavour to groom girls for STEM,” said Mr Mazambane.

 He said the scarcity of girls and women taking up STEM subjects is caused by issues of masculinity stereotypes surrounding the STEM sphere, fear, lack of confidence and scepticism by girls towards the subjects.

Mr Mazambane added that the other causes are lack of female role models and gender bias in hiring and promoting biased evaluation of scientific work.

“STEM uptake in adolescent girls and women can however, be promoted through the creation of informal STEM learning environments, afterschool activities and summer camps. Parent involvement includes exposing their children and adolescents to enrichment activities outside school, which open up opportunities to explore science and technology through ‘doing’,” he said.

Mr Mazambane said the doing part includes coding and robotics clubs, and science/art summer camps.

He added that emphasising creativity and hands-on activity allows young girls to explore science and technology as hobbies not linked to academics. 

BCC Gender Focal Person, Mrs Audrey Manyemwe said this year’s commemorations were different as they were in the form of a symposium.

 Mrs Manyemwe said the target groups were young women and girls aged between eight and 12.

“On International Women’s Day, we look at how women remain behind in a lot of things. This year’s theme is ‘Digital Innovation and Technology for Gender Equality’ and we’re not seeing that equality in the uptake of the Internet and STEM subjects. Even if their participation is there, it’s very low and there’s that gap that needs to be covered in making sure that women use the internet to benefit and empower themselves,” said Mrs Manyemwe.

She said gender-based violence also affects women when they try to use technology or social media platforms.

Mrs Manyemwe said the symposium was organised as a way of contributing towards bridging the gap in innovation and technology forums for women.

She encouraged women to increase their visibility in STEM subjects.

“For this symposium, we also identified young women and entrepreneurs who are either in the STEM field or are benefiting from using technology to enhance their businesses. This is why we had female speakers sharing with us their experiences, trials and tribulations and what works or doesn’t work for them to motivate and inspire the young girls who are still growing up,” she said. @ReeSibanda