Binga
Report.
Description of Problem in relation to setting.
Binga
district is a marginalised rural setting that is situated in the Matebeleland
Province of Zimbabwe. The district has Tonga and Nambia as its predominant
cultures and languages. Demographic statistics indicates that the Binga has a
total population of about 129 000, with the majority of these individuals being
from the Apostolic and Zion communities (ref). The Apostolic and Zion communities are no
exceptions to the issues of child marriage and evidence suggest that child
marriages are perpetuated in such context. Journalism on the prevalence
statistics of child marriage highlights that Matebeleland North in which Binga
is located has a prevalence statistic of 27%. These statistics translate to 3
in every 10 children being married before the age of eighteen (ref). To this end, a
number of factors were highlighted during the tour to be determinants of child
marriage. Key among these factors were the issues poverty, distance to schools,
church doctrines, compromised or no access to SRHS and the patriarchal nature of society where
women and the girl child are treated as personal property.
Activities carried out.
1.
Addressing of religious and community
leaders.
Prior
to addressing Apostolic and Zion church members in Binga district, a meeting/follow
up dialogue was held with their leadership. This meeting was done as means of
making the leadership who are the primary custodians of the church and
community have an appreciation of CCU campaign to ending child marriage. This
move helped in establishing rapport between the CCU, the Apostolic and Zion
churches and the community, thus allowing CCU to have unlimited access to the
church members and the community. A noticeable impact of this activity was the
acknowledgement by the community and religious leaders to support CCU in this
community development effort.
2.
Priority setting.
This
activity involved engaging with the Apostolic and Zion church leadership and
members affiliated to ACCZ as well as Binga community members, in identifying
key/priority determinants of child marriage. This activity came about with the
realisation that child marriage has multiple determinants hence the need
address the determinants in accordance to their level of importance. As
aforementioned in the problem description, poverty was highlighted as the major
contributing factor to child marriage as most parents said that they could not
afford getting their children to school.
3.
Training of club leaders.
With resources we trained health
and club leaders, as the Unit hopes to establish health and rights clubs in the
churches. The clubs will constantly do activities in the churches in regard to
the subject of SRHR focusing on child marriage. The club leaders were drawn
from different churches represented and pledged to start the clubs in the
churches when the UNIT provides
material for them.
4.
Distribution of IEC material.
The distribution of IEC material was an
activity that was carried out as means of increasing church members and
community knowledge on the issue of child marriage. The material that was
distributed was in English language. This however came as a limitation as some
of the attendants did not understand English.
Resolutions.
A number of resolutions were made by
the church and community members in Binga district. Firstly the attendants
agreed on carrying out income generating projects to address poverty as a determinant
of child marriage. The projects that were mention were vegetable gardening,
poultry,
bakery and fishery. To address the issue of distance, a plea
was also raised to provide bicycles to
school going children. Donating bicycles to children was said
to help in reducing the probability of not reaching school and finishing
school. The information material for Binga was also translated into a language
that is understandable to the community and is to be sent by the CCU.
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