Programs

Our programs conform to the notion of empowerment. Empowerment is a process of facilitating, instilling, and providing the means for girls to overcome the obstacles they face to attaining full access to their human rights

The empowerment of girls in Africa is key to their transformation into powerful leaders who are able to walk in the fullness of their potential. While girls have the ability to address the challenges they face, to do so they need external support. We intend to provide the means for girls to stand up in exploitive situations and claim their rights. Our programs do not seek to give a fish, but rather to give a fishing rod. Given the many obstacles girls face in Africa it is imperative that we develop a critical mass movement at the grassroots level that is vibrant and well coordinated to break the cycle of poverty and violence. This program promotes a culture of prevention and provides girls with the life skills necessary to be self-sustaining and independent. Empowerment is a lifetime investment that girls will perpetually benefit from, therein bettering their lives, communities, nations, and the world.

Girls’ Empowerment and Education Fund

Young women and girls in Africa and all over the world have been waiting for someone courageous enough to fill the gap and fund the need for girl empowerment and education. They now know there is somewhere to turn: GCNW is ready to offer financial assistance to all girls in need. The organization has launched a Girls’ Empowerment and Education Fund (GEEF), which is the first ever international girls’ fund giving girls small grants to promote self-reliance, the creation of girls’ clubs, and girl-run development projects not supported elsewhere because of various bureaucratic systems.

GEEF has been officially launched with an initial capital of $60,000 during the first 3 months since the formation of GCNW. GCNW receives an average of $2,000 monthly. It is hoped as fundraising efforts intensify, additional funds will be raised for GEEF. GCNW currently has over 103 requests for funding from girls` groups in four different countries. Our assistance is granted primarily to girls who are in poverty-stricken areas, and those in child-headed families with no other means of survival and who cannot support their education due to poverty, discrimination, and gender inequality.

It has never before been possible for a girl from the rural areas to write a project proposal, submit it across the miles and be confident that she will receive a response. She knows her request will not be ignored and she will receive all the support she needs. This is a revolution in the philanthropic world where girls from rural areas begin to receive life-changing grants directly. GCNW has opened doors for rural girls and we have received over 68 proposals from girls with as short as three sentences to six pages long. We have aroused the eagerness and zeal in girls to stand up and do something to unleash their potential and get access to safe funding.

The basic argument we present in GEEF is that there is no way we can give more money to women`s groups when we do not fund the foundation of their leadership as girls. The education and empowerment of girls that is initiated by the girls themselves is now fully supported and has started to give a ray of hope to future women leaders. It is evident through bright smiling faces and emails girls sent to us that we see them now being development partners rather than mere recipients.

This initiative will raise 3 million U.S. dollars by the end of the set 5-year period through the Million Dollar Girl-to-Girl Campaign.

The GEEF will consider proposals from girls to do the following:

• Carry out self-help projects to earn income
• Pay school fees to complete high school
• Pay university tuition fees to pursue a professional occupation
• Help create girls’ clubs
• Fund girls’ clubs activities
• Offer emergency support in violent situations

GEEF accepts proposals from impoverished individual girls or groups of girls who show deep financial need and constitute one or more of the following:

1. Member of a girls’ club
2. Provide for their siblings
3. Parents are deceased, incapacitated, or have left the country to earn income

Trustees ratify grants for girls, and in the event of emergency situations, the CEO may permit a small discretionary grant.

Monitoring and Evaluation of GEEF

The key to the success of GEEF and GCNW is to ensure all affiliates are thoroughly trained to assist girls in implementing projects and to monitor the application and use of funds by girls. A GEEF officer is currently developing a grant procedure manual and is also training staff among affiliates to help monitor and evaluate the impact of GEEF on girls.

Girls-at-Risk Support Program

This program provides 24-hour emergency services to abused girls, especially for those who want to disclose abuse following GCNW awareness campaigns. GCNW carries out rescues for potential abuse victims, accompanies them to the police, social welfare agencies, and other children’s service and women’s organizations as appropriate. They also provide referrals for legal aid, shelter, counseling, and relocation of rape survivors.  Finally, GCNW conducts self-empowerment courses to aid victims of sexual, physical, emotional, and economic abuse and offers follow-up rehabilitation, scholarships, and reinstatement into school.

Since 1998 to date the Girls-at-Risk Support Program has tracked and tackled over 70 000 cases of child sexual abuse in six of Zimbabwe’s provinces, providing legal and psychosocial support to abused girls and their families, taking a dual approach through prosecution of the abusers and rehabilitation of the abused children.  Most of the girls who have been supported in this way have managed to return to their education, including several who have since completed tertiary education.

In summation, the program provides:

• Emergency rescue operations for girls at risk. An integral part of GCNW is its Girls’ Empowerment Villages which serve as community – supported safe houses for girls who have been affected by abuse
• Reinstatement of sexually abused, orphaned, and vulnerable girls into schools
• Rehabilitation of girls in safer family homes
• Women As Role Models (WARM) Program to link women achievers with poor girls for educational sponsorship
• Effective referral service to all survivors of abuse especially rape

Girls’ Empowerment Villages

If a girl child is identified as endangered, the Girls-at-Risk Support Unit undertakes several strategic interventions and may implement emergency services. The unit undertakes emergency rescue missions, rehabilitation, and reintegration of girls-at-risk as well as providing access to education for survivors of abuse. The unit may also place particularly vulnerable girls within Girls’ Empowerment Villages. These are safe and secure havens for girls within the rural communities of Zimbabwe that are run by professional social workers. They allow girls to heal from abuse and get referrals from police, social services, and the judicial system. In addition, girls can access medical attention, psychological support, education, training, empowerment, and justice. The village enables victimized girls to transform into survivors and leaders. It acts to shelter and protect girls, allows for information exchange involving counseling and rehabilitation, and acts as a social support system. These villages include actual physical space with dormitories and a center where girls can gather. We will increase the number of Girls’ Empowerment Villages from the current 4, all in Zimbabwe, to a total of 8. The 4 additional villages will be located in Uganda, Zimbabwe, Botswana, and South Africa.

Women As Role Models (WARM) Program

There are many influential women who want to make a difference in the lives of girls. WARM intends to mobilize women to do small acts of charity in their own communities in order to support disadvantaged girls, especially in Africa. A woman role model is one who is a great leader and achiever in all spheres of her life. She is best described as a female who has worked hard to overcome patriarchy and works as an equal partner with men in her field and inspires girls to achieve the same through moral and financial support. A woman role model is a clear example of a leader who, through sheer hard work and determination, has overcome numerous obstacles to achieve success educationally, socially, economically, and politically.

Activities include:

• Mobilising women role models to fundraise for girls in poor countries

• Visiting schools and registering girls to donate one dollar per year to support girls education in poor countries

• Connecting with a group of girls within a poor country and making donations such as soap, books, clothes and other such basic necessities.

GCNW has achieved a lot for the girl child with the help of women role models. Over the years we have seen many more women responding favorably to uplift girl children. WARM has greatly enriched GCNW as it is evident that women and girls work much closer together than before. Any woman who has made a difference in the girls’ lives is invited to receive a certificate of recognition for the fact that she has made significant contributions to GCNW.

Advocacy

• We continue to raise our voices to expose pressing threats to girls

• We speak out at key international gatherings and policy-making forums to highlight issues challenging girls worldwide

• We will spend 25 percent of organizational time in international advocacy

The Need for Solidarity

The unique vulnerability of the Girl Child

Like women, girls are disadvantaged because of their gender; but coupled with this gender-based disadvantage is an age-based disadvantage. The girl child is particularly vulnerable because of the combination of her age and gender. Furthermore, as outlined below, a combination of sexual, social, cultural, economic and legal realities in Zimbabwe and elsewhere have all interacted to create a particularly hostile environment for the girl child.

Girls are struck by many disasters in the world. Violence against girls is rampant within homes, schools, and communities. According to GCNW’s findings:

• It is estimated that 60 million girls are not in school and half of them get married before they reach 15-years-old.
• Due to many harmful cultural practices like female genital mutilation and forced religiously and culturally sanctioned marriages, girls are five times more at risk of contracting HIV/AIDS than boys due to harmful cultural practices.
• Annually, an estimated 23 million girls worldwide are raped and exposed to harmful cultural practices and most of them die in silence.
• In Zimbabwe, 70,000 girls fell victim to rape in 2001. This figure is a very conservative estimate because many girls are unable to report.
• In situations of poverty, girls are commoditized in exchange for food.
• There is continual deprivation from birth up until womanhood, with cycles of violence and poverty recycled from grandmother, to mother, to daughter.

Gender discrimination due to cultural attitudes, beliefs, and practices continues to take its toll on the life of girls and prevents their full physical, emotional, and spiritual growth as well as their potential to become women leaders. Therefore, it is critical that we stand in solidarity with all girl children throughout their quest for emancipation. Girls from all parts of the world are already joining hands not as victims but as survivors and leaders!

The four campaigns we focus on are as follows

1. Girls must be in classrooms and not bedrooms
2. If condoms are free so should sanitary pads
3. Give rapists deterrent sentences
4. Girls lives threatened