Establishment of Boys Network at Kamulanga High School

Kamulanga High School is located approximately 8 km south of Lusaka.  It is one of the safe schools where Zambia National Women's Lobby (ZNWL) is working with the Forum for African Women Educationalists of Zambia (FAWEZA) under the TAAAC. ZNWL has been in contact with Kamulanga High School, aiming to introduce the Boys Network.

In the last quarter, the identification process of the Boys Network members could not take place because the students were writing exams.  ZNWL has finally been able to establish the Boys Network at the school.  The school has identified Mr. Longwa Kalombo as the network patron.  The Boys Network selected an executive committee of seven members using a democratic approach.  The Boys Network members determined on their own about the postitions (i.e. whether there should be a club chairperson or club president and the rest of the positions).  They settled for a President, Vice President, Secretary, Vice Secretary, Treasurerer, and three committee members.

Nelson (ZNWL) addressing the Boys at Kamulanga High School

A training programme for the boys is being planned, but the training site is yet to be identified.  There are three options for the training sites: Kasaka Camp in Kafue, Mount Eugenia near the Zambia Air Force Base in Lusaka West, and Fringila in Chisamba. Any suggestions from the coalition members are welcome.

Girls training at YWCA

The Safe Spaces Program held a training during the second week of September.  Ten girl students from Kamwala High School were trained at the Lusaka YWCA.

"Safe Spaces Cluster" - Population Council at Work in the Coalition

A "safe space" is a safe place where girls will regularly meet in a group, so that they are able to build friendships with other girls in the group. These safe spaces will also help the girls build trusting friendships with their mentors and will be able to turn to the mentors when they have a problem. Safe space meetings will also help girls reduce their vulnerability to sexual harassment and violence.

One critical piece of preventing gender based violence among adolescent girls is create and support safes spaces for girls, within the school setting, where they can build social, human, and economic assets – learning basic health and financial education, as well as an understanding of their rights and an increase in their self-esteem. The Population Council is helping to support, monitor, and evaluate the Safe Spaces cluster within the TAAAC Coalition. This cluster, also including CAMFED, FAWEZA, YWCA, and PPAZ, will work in six Lusaka schools to implement these programs for girls, as well as involving mentors, teachers, and parents. The core of this program will involve girls meeting weekly in groups, facilitated by a mentor. Mentors running safe spaces will have a better understanding of girls’ rights and issues and will be able to address their concerns, provide appropriate referrals, and implement strategies to build girls’ assets;

Population Council collected data on teachers and students according to their sex in the Safe Space schools. These schools include: Munali Girls High School, Chazanga Basic School, Kamwala High School, Chongwe Basic School and Kamulanga High School.

Next Population council guided the safe spaces on how to recruit most vulnerable girls in the safe space program by using a checklist questionnaire, which includes questions on age, grade, living situation, if their parents are alive, if they have ever being absent from school and why , and if their community is violent or not. Organizations used this information to select the most vulnerable girls at each school to participate in the program.

During the recruitment of the girls the safe space cluster also organized sensitization meetings with the teachers and community members to share with them about the program. The Safe Space program was very welcomed and they pledged their support.

Population Council, in consultation with the safe spaces cluster, compiled a curriculum with topics on human rights, reproductive health and contraceptives, relationships, life skills, HIV/AIDS and STIs, gender and gender based violence, financial education, and substance abuse. This curriculum will be used both to train the group mentors and for use during the weekly sessions with the girls in the 5 schools.

Adolescent Girls Capacity Building and Program Design Workshop

From March 1st – 4th, the Population Council hosted a workshop on Adolescent Girls Capacity Building and Program Design. The purpose of the workshop was to help Zambian NGOs and CBOs to understand the best practices of adolescent girls programs and work with them to develop high quality program plans to reach vulnerable adolescent girls within their own programs. Some groups already had girl-only programming and were looking to strengthen or expand their work; some groups were developing a girl-only program component for the first time. The workshop included sessions on asset building, savings and financial education, working with parents/communities, recruitment, monitoring and evaluation, fundraising, and more.

Among the 15 organizations who participated were the four organizations from the Safe Spaces Cluster – YWCA Lusaka, CAMFED, PPAZ, and FAWEZA. These four organizations used the opportunity to work closely with girls programming experts to develop their program design for the safe spaces program that will be carried out under the TAAAC activities.

Upcoming event: 2nd week of September 2010 - training of mentors in the 5 schools where the safe spaces program is being implemented.

TAAAC on Joy FM Talk Show

The directive banning male teachers from conducting tuition for girls from their homes which was issued by the Minister of Education, Hon. Dora Siliya at the ZAMWA Journalists Media Training Workshop on August 10, 2010 has generated a lot of interest in the country. The workshop is part of the many activities being funded by the UN Trust Fund under the project, "Our Girls, Our Future, Building Synergy to end Violence against Adolescent Girls in Zambia."


In issuing the directive, Hon. Siliya (pictured above) noted some male teachers were using home tuitions to lure girls into sexual activities. This directive has been given extensive media coverage in both the print and electronic media, and responses from the cross section of our society to these media houses have continued to pour in. On August 11th, the TAAAC Coordinator/Consultant, Shupe Makashinyi featured on a radio talk show hosted by Emmanuel Mulenga of Joy FM Radio (106.9 MHz). Other people who were featured on the programme were Ms. Catherine Chinunda, Deputy General Secretary of the Zambia National Union of Teachers (ZNUT), and Mr. Erick Mwale, Director, Research and Workers Education, representing the Secondary School Teachers Union of Zambia (SESTUZ). The three interviewees discussed the subject of sexual abuse against adolescent girls and the Minister of Education's directive banning home tuition.


All the three interviewees welcomed the Minister of Education's directive and underscored the significant role it will play in scaling down incidences of sexual abuse of adolescent girls in schools. Although the teachers' union representatives downplayed the prevalence of this problem among teachers, Mrs. Makashinyi maintained that what is obtaining on the ground is cause for worry.

She highlighted some of the comprehensive sexual and health related services that are provided to young people by coalition members such as the PPAZ. She encouraged parents and guardians of school-attending children to immediately report cases of sexual abuse to the police and also seek immediate help for the victim of abuse attention at the One Stop Centre based at the University Teaching Hospital. She called for the formulation and legally enforceable code of conduct for teachers in order to make our schools safe environments for the girl child and restrain would be offenders.

It is gratifying to note that the Zambian government is recognising and acknowledging that cases of sexual violence against girls is also being perpetrated by people to whom parents entrust their children for the better part of the day. TAAAC Zambia will continue to play its critical role of advocacy and influence policy and legal reform in order to obtain justice for victims of sexual abuse and safeguard the welfare of our children.

ZAMWA Journalists' Media Training

On 9th August, 2010, journalists drawn from nearly all the media houses in Lusaka converged at Cosmic Lodge for a Media Training on Sexual Violence Against Girls. The training was being conducted by the Zambia Media Women Association (ZAMWA). ZAMWA is one of the TAAAC coalition members in the media cluster. The training ran from 9th to 11th August, 2010.


The training is part of the UN Trust Fund activities under the "Our Girls, Our Future, Building Synergy to end Violence against Adolescent Girls in Zambia" project. The focus of the training was to enhance awareness-raising and attention in the media to issues related to sexual violence against adolescent girls in Zambia. Some of the topics covered in the training included an overview of Sexual Violence Against Girls (SVAG) which was presented by Chali Selisho from Population Council; Exploring the National and Regional Legal Instruments in Addressing SVAG and SVAG: Challenges and Opportunities.


The training was graced by the Minister of Education, Honorable Dora Siliya, (see picture below) who gave a directive to the Provincial Education Officers and District Education Board Secretaries that no male teacher was to conduct tuition for girls from their homes as they were using this to lure girls into sexual activities. She said no male teacher was to ask girls into their homes regardless of the favor.

This is a directive I am making to all PEOs and DEBs, that no tuition should be conducted in teachers' homes. I will make sure all school managers adhere to this directive. Some male teachers sexually abuse several female pupils when they go for these tuitions in homes because these young girls are vulnerable.

It is the Coalition's hope that this directive will be stringently enforced and turn our schools into safer environments for the girls.

The TAAAC Coordinator, Shupe C. Makashinyi, in her closing remarks on the last day of the training, called on the journalists to scale up the efforts of prodding the consciences of the public and raising awareness of this problem by highlighting the damaging effects that sexual violence against girls has on adolescent girls.

Below is the full text of Shupe's closing remarks:

Closing Remarks on the ZAMWA Journalists’ Training, August 11th, 2010
Shupe C. Makashinyi (TAAAC Coordinator)

It is my rare honour and privilege to address you on the final day of what I believe has been a very successful and informative training programme organised by ZAMWA, one of the implementing partners in the Coalition. As media practitioners, I know you are aware of your key and strategic role in shaping public perceptions and opinions about significant social issues affecting society. It is widely accepted that what we know about, think about and believe about what happens in the world, outside of personal first-hand experience, is shaped by how these events are reported in newspapers and communicated through the medium of radio, television and the internet. The public learns about how much importance to attach to a topic on the basis of the emphasis placed on it in the news. And you provide those clues to the general public about the salience of the topics in the daily news. This may be through a lead story on the front, large headlines, the opening story on the newscast, length of time devoted to the story, etc. These cues repeated day after day effectively communicate the importance of each topic.

One of the urgent topics that require constant and consistent media coverage is that of sexual violence against adolescent girls in our schools. Sexual violence is a gross violation of children’s rights, and in the words of the former UNICEF Executive Director Ann Veneman, it is “a moral and ethical outrage and an assault on the world’s conscience.” This problem, among other things, leads to lost childhoods, abandoned education, physical and emotional problems, the spread of HIV, and an often irrevocable loss of dignity and self-esteem.

While it is generally known that sexual violence against girls is a global problem, very limited information and statistics on the extent of this problem are available in developing countries such as Zambia. And that’s the more reason why the UN Trust Fund was quick to fund this project in Zambia through the key implementing partner, Equality Now. And one of the crucial components of this project is enhanced awareness and attention in the media to issues related to sexual violence against adolescent girls.

This training was designed to increase the capacity of journalists to report on issues of sexual violence against girls. But as you know, reporting alone is not enough. Giving of facts and statistics alone is not sufficient. There is a need for a deliberate agenda that seeks to prod the conscience of the public and raise awareness of the problem by highlighting the damaging effects that this problem has on adolescent girls. The public needs to be sensitised to the reality of the problem and its telling consequences, not only on the victims, but also the terrible loss on the part of the perpetrators once apprehended and tried in the courts of law.

WAY FORWARD

1. There is need for improved synergy in reaching the goals of this project.
2. There is need for more media coverage of the activities of other implementing partners in the Coalition.
3. There is need for effective use of the Internet. The Coalition has set up a Blog (www.taaaczambia.blogspot.com) which we need to keep active all the time. Plans are underway to set up a website so we will be counting on you scribes to play the critical role of advocacy by contributing articles and news content which will be posted on the blog and website.

In conclusion, I would like to thank the following: ZAMWA for a splendid job in organising this training; I also wish to thank our facilitators who have done a commendable job, and of course I shouldn’t forget to thank all of you our valued participants for taking time off your busy and demanding profession to attend this training. I will be failing in my duties if I did not acknowledge and thank the UN Trust Fund for providing the funds for this project, and Equality Now who helped secure these funds and is the Lead Implementing Agency.

It is my hope that this training will prove to be a milestone in engendering new and positive attitudes and opinions, and lasting implications on behaviour change, legal reform and ultimately make our society a safe place for the girl child. God bless you.

TAAAC's Inception

In 2006, a girl aged 13 was sexually abused by her teacher at a known school in Lusaka, Zambia. The minor and her guardian sued the teacher, along with the school and the Zambian Ministry of Education. This case attracted public attention and was followed closely by many people both locally and outside the country. On June 30th, 2008, the presiding Judge, Philip Musonda delivered a judgment in the High Court of Zambia in which the victim was awarded K45 million Kwacha (about $13 000) as compensation.

Justice Musonda made the following telling observation:

“The government is responsible for all school going children in the care of its agents — such as teachers, school authorities and any other person in it’s employment during the time the schools are in session,”

This case became one of the few that have held government accountable for its obligations to the African Union’s Protocol on the Rights of Women in Africa to which Zambia is a signatory. The case has been hailed as a landmark judgement for the bold step taken by the Judge who held the Government liable for the violation of the girl Child in school and the state was asked to award damages.

The plight of this girl child was followed with keen interest by Equality Now, an organisation that works with national human rights organizations and individual activists to documents violence and discrimination against women and mobilizes international action to support their efforts to stop these human rights abuses. Equality Now saw this case as an appropriate advocacy tool for effecting the necessary change in Zambia and convened and strategised with various civil society organisations in Zambia to develop a program to address violence against girls by teachers.

After a few consultative meetings with Equality Now, some Zambian civil society organisations saw the need to form a coalition. In the formative stages of this coalition, Sara Longwe, (see picture below)

a renowned Human Rights Activist played a critical role, offering her wealth of experience in conjunction with the NGOCC that hosted most of the coalition meetings.

Since its inception, the coalition has developed a multi-faceted approach to fight violence against girls, under the banner of “Our girls, our future: building synergy to end violence against girls in Zambia,” using funds from the UN Trust Fund. This intiative is focused on securing justice for girls who experience sexual abuse and strengthen the national legal framework to address violence against women and girls.


In January, 2010 Equality Now hired a Consultant (TAAAC Coordinator), Shupe Makashinyi to coordinate the activities of the coalition. The coalition was officially launched on February 18th, 2010, at a colourful and well attended cocktail held at the Southern Sun Hotel in Lusaka.

The launch was preceded by the coalition building workshop which was attended by all implementing partners, and three members of staff from the lead implementing agency, Equality Now: Yasmeen Hassan, Director of Programmes (New York office); Faiza Mohamed, Director of Programmes (Nairobi office), and Muthoni Muriithi, Programme Officer (Nairobi office). The Country Director of Population Council, Dr. Jill Keesbury (see picture below), also attended the workshop to explain Population Council's responsibility of monitoring and evaluating the coalition's activities.


Among the people who attended the official launch were Hon. Richard Taima, Deputy Minister of Education, Hon. Lucy Changwe, Deputy Minister for Gender, her Lordship Deputy Chief Justice, Irene Mambilima, the Permanent Secretary in the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting Services, Mr. Ngosa Chisupa, NGO Directors, senior officials from the Ministry of Health and the Zambia Police Service, and other valuable stakeholders. (The three Equality Now Staff members, from left to right Muthoni, Yasmeen and Faiza)


Although the problem of sexual abuse of adolescent girls in Zambia has been growing at a very fireghtening rate, it is gratifying to note that there has also been a growing recognition of the need to safeguard the rights of adolescent girls and to ensure that interventions are centred on the concerns of these girls. This is what the coalition is seeking to do for the girl child in Zambia.

Kamulanga High School Teachers Meeting

Kamulanga High School is situated approximately 9 km from the town.  It is located south of Lusaka in Jack compound.  The school is one of the safe space schools where TAAAC is currently operating under the Forum for African Women Educationalist (FAWEZA).

On July 1, 2010, ZNWL Men's Network working with FAWEZA gave a presentation to teachers of Kamulanga High School.  The main aim of the meeting was to introduce the Men's Network Project and the Boys Network club for the boys.  The teachers were very enthusiastic about the project.

ZNWL also participated in the Parents Teachers Association meeting in the afternoon.  One of the interesting issues that ZNWL learned was how the school was transformed into the school of excellence by FAWEZA from an ordinary basic school.  The school authorities working with parents have also managed to secure a boarding house for underprivileged girls.

One of the critical issues that came out of the discussion was the increasing number of pupils dropping out of school due to lack of school fees.  After a lengthy discussion between teachers and parents, various proposals were made including parents making a certain amount of money to meet school for pupils who cannot afford to pay school fees.  ZNWL's proposal was to engage pupils themselves to fund raise for their friends who are not able to pay for the school fees.  This was welcomed by the school authorities and parents.

Teachers Sensitisation
During this session a brief introduction of ZNWL and its programs was given to the teachers.  It was mentioned that ZNWL works with women politicians from all political parties in processes of capacity building, lobbying and advocacy with government departments, the presidency, political parties and other strategic allies.  The teachers were informed that in 2000, ZNWL launched the Men's Network Project to deal with escalating concerns of women by involving men as models to reach other men.  Some of the activities for engaging men include capacity building of new network members, the Men's Travelling Conference and the Men's Campfire Night Conference and the newly introduced Boys Network Project.

The focus of the teachers' sensitisation was to help the teachers grasp the project before it come into school.  The Boys Network club will be an advocacy tool against the sexual violence on adolescent girls in schools.  It was explained that the development of this project was prompted by the fact that there are increasing cases of violence against girls in schools.  In principle the teachers welcomed the initiative.  The boys network will work in key focus areas which include training of boys as advocates, radio programmes as one of the innovation for giving an opportunity to boys to speak out against violence as well as reaching other boys in schools and in the community and sensitisation of parents on SGBV.

The teachers were informed that a formal request will be made to the school to have the initiative recognised.  So far a letter has been written to that effect.  A date for establishing the Boys Network is yet to be set up.  So far so good as communication has been established with the head teacher, Ms. Patricia Mudenda.

Men's Network Project Coordinator, Nelson Banda, flanked by Kamulanga High School headmistress, Patricia Mudenda, and FAWEZA's Mwenya Chiti, giving a session to teachers during the Teachers Sensitisation at Kamulanga High School, of of the Safe Spaces Schools.

 Kamulanga High School teachers listening during the sessions.