GWEN Director's words

We have prepared an organisation strategy to help us move from the nascent stages of our organizational formation to becoming a force to reckon with in the pursuit of girls and women’s rights. The next three years for us are crucial – we are consolidating our programming models while at the same time, we seek to strengthen our own organizational capacity to deliver.
In this journey towards establishing ourselves as a platform and voice for girls and young women, we have made significant strides and learnt valuable lessons that we apply in the current planning process to optimise our strategies
For example, we have often heard from our stakeholders that we were trying to do everything thereby spreading ourselves too thinly for impact. We have done some self-introspection and have now come up with a solution that allows us to focus without losing impact and identity.
By applying the principles of ‘Leaving No One Behind’ we learnt that the situation of girls and young women is necessitated by various factors which work together to sustain their vulnerability. Hence, we crafted this strategy to work at the intersection, acknowledging and seeking to comprehensively address various issues. This approach requires us not to work in silos but to build partnerships that bring in skills and interventions we do not have ourselves to our constituencies.
In addition, we have had to take a decision to remain community-focussed working only in the Greater Harare and its peripheries knowing that delivering comprehensive interventions requires us to limit the numbers we reach. We remain, however, open to work in any communities in Zimbabwe should our skills be needed.
We learnt from both literature and our own experience that impacting the lives of girls and young women takes more than just working with this target group – there is need to ensure that their ecological environment is supportive and conducive. As a result, we have founded this strategy on three outcomes that seek to achieve change at the girls and young women individual level, the community as well as the policy/institutional levels
We learnt from both literature and our own experience that impacting the lives of girls and young women takes more than just working with this target group – there is need to ensure that their ecological environment is supportive and conducive. As a result, we have founded this strategy on three outcomes that seek to achieve change at the girls and young women individual level, the community as well as the policy/institutional levels
Our conclusion from this planning process is that there is more to be done to promote, respect and fulfil the rights of girls and young women. We are ready to upgrade our resources, skills and motivation to be equal to the task. As a result, we set ourselves ambitious targets to grow our organization. In order to do this, we rely on the support of our various stakeholders such the communities we serve, government departments as well as strategic and funding partners. Come join us on this journey of empowering girls and young women!

Kumbirai Kahiya

Director