It is part of organizational policy and practice for Masakhaneni Projects Trust (MPT) to mainstream gender in all its programming. In addition, MPT runs gender programmes in their own right. Generally, gender refers to a culturally defined set of economic, social, and political roles, responsibilities, rights, entitlements, obligations, and power relations associated with being female and male, and the relationships between and among women and men. Considering that Zimbabwean cultural, religious, socio-economic and even legislative environment are highly patriarchal and therefore biased against women and girls, the communities targeted by MPT are not an exception. For example, problems of prevalence of domestic violence, rape, high rate of school dropout for girls, high levels of unemployment of women, ill health for women and extremes of poverty demonstrate that women and men face life challenges differently due to gender roles.

By focusing on gender issues and integrating gender in peace building, health programs, livelihood projects and generally in all programme activities MPT works on transforming rural communities by deepening their understanding of gender issues and help in changing gender norms. The aim would be to reducing gender inequalities and the vices associated with it like domestic violence, sexual abuse and socio-economic disadvantages. Also, MPT’s approach recognizes the role of gender mainstreaming and awareness raising play in improving service delivery by both local authorities and central government.

Our approach to gender work is not top to down but is a bottom-up and participatory driven mainly by issues brought out by communities. One such issue prevalent in local communities but resonates with the whole country is the issue of access to land use. While the Fast Track Land Reform that saw previously owned white farms taken over by the black majority has been hailed as a feat in agrarian reform in modern times, the gender dimensions of the resultant land distribution is appalling. Women remain largely landless after the land reform confirming the patriarchal political and economic environment that denies women equal political and economic opportunities even during a massive transformation. Access to land is hugely skewed against women even if in Zimbabwe women are in the majority consisting 52% of the population. Secondly, women are the majority who work on the land producing food yet they do not control the land that they work on.

There is no doubt that culture, religion and general practise have all conspired against women and girls in that economically they are disempowered generally and society expects them to accept lower positions than men. Yet another burning issue from local communities we work with is that of inheritance. Although the law does not discriminate against women, in actual practice male children still remain heirs while daughters are denied their parents’ property. More troubling is that in the event a husband dies first its either sons or male relatives who usurp the family wealth when the wife as the surviving spouse is disinherited. These are still challenges that continue to tie women in poverty and helplessness. It is the reason women till the land they do not own or tender domestic animals that eventually are inherited by males. It is important for families to write wills and ensure all children both male and female equally benefit from deceased estate.

Women are generally underrepresented in governance and yet they suffer more for poor governance and inadequate services delivery. Rural women suffer relatively more than urban women due to a number of factors. Poor governance, for example, leads to poor services delivery like health care, basic education or access to clean and safe water. Women suffer more than men when it comes to inadequate services delivery. Hence MPT programmes factor gender specifically for the differential impact on men and women of policies and public processes.

With raised awareness on gender issues by both men and women, communities have shown much improvement in a number of ways. It helps in improving selecting people to positions of responsibilities and widening spaces for girls and women in economic and public spaces. Levels of gender tolerance increases and minimizes cases of domestic violence. With an increased voice by women in community affairs, developmental issues receive more buy-in and support from wider community. It helps build confidence in people and promotes respect of human rights and dignity.