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Tsungai Chekerwa-Machokoto, Gender
IT is that time of the year again where we take special recognition of women and celebrate them. International Women’s Day is celebrated on March 8 by people all over the world and the celebrations have become bigger and bigger every year. This year, I would like to appreciate not only women in general, but specifically my Zimbabwean sisters.

Zimbabwean women have done and continue to do remarkably impressive things but they are not celebrated half as much as they should be. So today we use this platform to take special cognisance of the work that has been done by local women as we celebrate International Women’s Day. There are so many articles celebrating iconic figures and I support that 100 percent, but I believe that if we do not elevate the successes of our own women, we would have failed as a country.

I saw quite a lot of posts on different social media platforms paying tribute to women, appreciating their sacrifices and the important role that they play in life. That was very commendable. I also saw some degrading posts insulting women and their need for attention. Some were joking that women want presents for everything and they want presents for Women’s Day as well.

Putting all jokes aside, women are an integral part of society and they are the glue that keeps the societal fibres together. The influence of a woman, good or bad can literally make or break any given space. Be it a workplace, a business, an organisation or a school. The character and quality of the women that dominate that space becomes the environment of the area. It is reality. When a woman is down, even in a family, that house is down as well and in the same vein, when a woman is feeling happy, she tends to light up the whole mood of the entire house. That she does without even trying.

Today we celebrate the many achievements achieved by women from different walks of life in Zimbabwe. We celebrate their milestones and we encourage them to continue on. Our local women, such as Pokello Nare, expanded their businesses across different borders. Now her business has been launched in Zambia, Botswana, Tanzania and Uganda. We celebrate all women in that category today, Zimbabweans who are taking their businesses to the rest of Africa and the world. Zodwa Mthunzi, the owner of Traverse Travel, an award winning travel agency in Zimbabwe, we celebrate you and all you do for our locals. Ruvheneko Parirenyatwa who launched her own TV show, going bigger and doing more challenging things than being on radio in my opinion, we celebrate your boldness and we support you.

Then of course, the rise and rise of the comedy queens, Madam Boss, Mai T and Gonyeti. These women have taken social media platforms by storm, discussing cutting edge issues through comedy, just brilliant! The comedy queens really fascinated me because they joined forces to become complementary to each other instead of falling into the same stereotype that has marked women for years: the stereotype that says women do nothing but fight each other and bring each other down.

These women have defied that and I am personally proud of them. Their creativity is very impressive. Our local women have really outdone themselves during this last year and we celebrate them. We hope that they become the Trevor Noahs of Zimbabwe. We celebrate you and all the other ones not mentioned by name.

From the last International Women’s Day celebrations, we experienced a horrific ordeal of human trafficking. Our women were taken to Kuwait under false pretenses and ended up encountering traumatic experiences. We were happy when some of them were repatriated even though it was but a small number compared to the ones that were said to have remained in Kuwait. These women, traumatised as they were from the abuses they faced, found the courage to talk about their experiences just for the sake of helping that one woman who might hear similar offers and find them attractive enough to interest them.

For these women who survived Kuwait and many others who have survived similar ordeals, we celebrate that strength. We celebrate you.

Our other powerful women such as the managing director of Securico, Divine Ndhlukula, who has taken the business world by storm is a woman of note.

She has been an amazing ambassador of not only women, but Zimbabwean women. She is a powerful example of what women can achieve and a result of her inspiration is that more women have the confidence to venture into business that is not “typically” for women. In that similar category, we have the chief executive officer of Sylvern Investments, Sylvern Chisewe, who is doing big things in the electronic arena. She is domineering that business that is “meant for men” and we are impressed. We celebrate you and every other leading businesswoman today.

I heard of a young woman who had gone through a gender based violence (GBV) ordeal in the form of rape in different circles. I thought it was remarkable but hadn’t really inquired much into the facts of the events. I was coincidentally invited to a discussion that was organised to discuss GBV and I attended.

That is when I met Charlene Chekenya. She stood up, talked about her traumatic encounter but she didn’t stop there. She talked about her encounter inspiring her to start a foundation that works to eradicate all forms of GBV and especially rape for the young women. She lit up when she talked about the Orange Cup. This is where men are gathered together to watch a game of soccer but before the game of soccer, they are made aware of the heinous crime of rape and the way it affects women and then the change they can make by taking part in making sure that it doesn’t happen.

I thought that was a brilliant idea and it was evidence of the statement that “The future lies in the youth”. She has a way of thinking that appeals to the young generation and her strategic thinking is really awesome. For your courage, hard work, compassion and leadership, we celebrate not only you Charlene, but every other woman who has used her ugly struggles to empower the next person.

We also celebrate women who decided to go back to school for whatever reason. Whether they decided to go back to school, or to start school from scratch, International Women’s Day is there to celebrate such milestones. Our successes, no matter how small they might appear, are to be celebrated so at to encourage the younger ones coming after us to have the will to excel and to step outside the box into greatness.

To the many women who have fought to keep their children in school by working so hard and sacrificing their own necessities, we celebrate you. There has been an increase in girls attending secondary school and that is commendable. The more girls that get educated, the more the girl child follows suit.

President Barack Obama once said, “If you want to educate a child, start with educating the mother”, so the more mothers that have access to education, the more the future generation will be intellectually liberated.

That statement is so profound and I believe it fully because I have seen it working in my personal life. Education has a ripple effect and that effect is life changing. We celebrate all women who have dedicated their lives to the cause of education.

Women in the private sector, who use their influence and resources to assist other women and to empower them to be financially independent, we salute you. One of those women is Tidings Chimpondah. Her organisation has done remarkable things concerning empowering women in the rural areas to be able to survive poverty that stems from not only financial exclusion, but also the lack of knowledge of how to go about starting a business.

Her organisation, Mags Network, trains people first, before it facilitates the distribution of start-up resources to be used as capital. The beauty of the program is that it is not a charity, no. She teaches the women responsibility by requiring them to pay the money back in small batches. This has worked so well and she got an award for her idea at the Fortune’s Most Powerful Woman Awards held in America recently. To Tidings, and all the other women who are doing the same kind of thing, this International Women’s Day, we celebrate you! Thank you for all the lives that you have touched over the years.

There are so many achievements and milestones by women across the globe but we are proudest of the achievements of our own Zimbabwean women.

They have achieved a lot. Their businesses have expanded, some became brands, some launched themselves in different areas and some have used their experiences to create awareness against issues that could hurt other women.

Whatever it is that each and every woman in Zimbabwe did from the last International Women’s Day that was positive, we celebrate it. We celebrate you.

Keep keeping on Zimbabwean women. Happy International Women’s Day. Here’s to us!

Tsungai Chekerwa-Machokoto can be reached on [email protected]