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Crystabel Chikayi, Features Reporter
WHEN some women wake up in the morning to sweep their yards and wait for their husbands to bring home groceries, others will instead leave their houses to look for men to take care of their financial needs — the blessers.

A blesser is what some have described as the modern day sugar daddy except he does not necessarily have to be old.

The dangers of such transactional sex include among others, unwanted pregnancies and high risk of contracting HIV/Aids as negotiating for safe sex is almost impossible.

Having noticed the risk of young women going after men in order to sustain themselves, the founder of Divine Joy Family Destiny Dialogue, a women’s empowerment organisation, Mrs Rumbidzai Mutasa-Tshili said at first she thought the solution was to empower the women by imparting skills.

She said she started a programme to offer a six-week braiding course in the hope that after completing the course, her students were going to start their own businesses or seek employment at salons.

Mrs Mutasa-Tshili said to her surprise, most of her graduates were back on the streets to look for blessers.

She said she was in a dilemma as she did not know what to do next but after a careful analysis, she realised that a certificate alone was not enough.

“I realised that equipping the women with braiding skills without changing their mindset was not helpful because many of them went back to what they considered to be easy way of making money which was offering their ‘bodies’ to men for a living. It hurt me but I had to find a solution to the new problem of skilled women reverting to their old ways of making money which put their lives at risk,” said Mrs Mutasa-Tshili.

She said she then came up with a programme to change the mindset which she called the “Red Card”.

“Red Card is a Divine Joy initiative meant to empower people through transforming the mind. It seeks to build strong character. Through Red Card we teach zero tolerance to sex before marriage, drug abuse and violence among other issues. We visit schools and churches to preach the Red Card gospel,” said Mrs Mutasa-Tshili.

The organisation also works in conjunction with the National Employment Service Team and participates in its career guidance programmes.
Mrs Mutasa-Tshili said  the programme is meant to build confidence especially among young children so that they work towards a better future regardless of their backgrounds.

“Through Red Card we also counsel children who have problems at home and intervene where necessary. We once came across a girl who had excelled at her O-Level examinations but her father had no money to pay for her A-Levels. We helped the child get a scholarship and now she’s at Manama High School in Gwanda doing her A-Levels.”

Mrs-Mutasa-Tshili said after visiting schools and addressing pupils, many of them later phone her opening up regarding their plight.

There are some issues they prefer to tell strangers as opposed to their parents, she said.

“Some of the pupils we’ve met are addicts and they open up to us. We help with the necessary counselling. Other children come from broken families and that on its own adversely affects their self-esteem. We assist such pupils build self-confidence so that they realise that they can even do better than those pupils said to be coming up from the so called good families,” she said.

Mrs Mutasa-Tshili said it is believed that what a boy knows is what his father taught him.

Red Card teaches boys to be responsible and resist bad habits from even their fathers such as engaging in violence. “We believe that it’s best to build a child than to ‘repair’ a man. What the children need to be reminded of is that building the future starts today. We teach them to think positively about their future. Once they know they can make it in life, they get motivated,” she said.

Mrs Mutasa-Tshili said when they discuss with girls they make it very clear that apart from putting their lives at risk, they also destroy marriages by dating married men.

“When the girl child goes after a married man for material gifts, eventually she’ll fall pregnant and might need another blesser to take care of her baby and by so doing the cycle of poverty continues,” she said.

Mrs Mutasa-Tshili said the organisation sometimes takes the youths for camping where they teach them basic household chores. This assist especially girls to enjoy happy marriages. The camps are also meant to instill a sense of respect and responsibility in both sexes.

“We encourage unity and love in families while everyone is still alive. We encourage parents to support and invest in their children regardless of their flaws. Children are the future and chasing them away when they do wrong is not the solution. We teach parents that taking care of their children is like planting a tree, later in life the tree will provide a shade,” said Mrs Mutasa-Tshili.

She said the other aspect of Red Card was skills sharing whereby individuals with certain skills impart the skills to fellow members of the community. She said although her new emphasis now was on changing the mindset, individuals need skills to generate income.

The mentor of the Red Card initiative, Mr Decent Matete, said the objective of the programme is to equip the young people to face challenges especially when they leave school.

“What we want is to restore social values so that the young people abhor indulging in anti-social activities such as prostition, drug abuse and sex before marrigage,” he said. — @cchikayi