By Style Reporter
Padare Enkundleni Men’s Forum on gender is pushing for an equal share of care work between men and women as part of its drive to foster gender justice and equality.
The organisation which focuses on men and boys’ involvement to achieve gender justice in society, is currently running a “We Care” project in ward 15 of Bubi district of Matabeleland North province with support from Oxfam Zimbabwe.
Speaking to Standard Style, Padare programmes officer Paul Vingi said they were doing all they can to foster a gender justice, including redistribution of care work in the home to lessen the burden on women.
“Gender justice is a key driver of our work at Padare and this week we held a meeting with stakeholders where we put them to task on service delivery aimed at lessening the burden on women,” Vingi said.
“We engaged the District Development Fund, Zimbabwe National Water Authority, the local council, Health ministry and other government departments as well as our partners Musasa Project.”
An Oxfam supported project installed some piped water scheme in Bubi ward 15, which made a long of difference, but still the water challenges remain in other parts of Bubi, hence the engagement of stakeholders to find a lasting solution to water-related care work challenges in the district as whole,” Vingi said.
According to Vingi, the Bubi meeting, which was co-organised by Bekezela Home-Based Care, was aimed at establishing how stakeholders can also chip in to ensure adequate water supply and how to replicate the same piped water scheme in other wards using their own budgets.
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“Scaling up the project across the district will curtail the burden of unpaid care work and reduce the amount of time women take looking for water and other house chores,” Vingi said.
The Bubi project started in 2016 with Padare engaging men and boys on social norms relating to considering unpaid care work as a reserve for women, recognising unpaid work and redistributing it equally to reduce the burden on women.
“The project borders on the four Rs, namely recognise, redistribute, reduce and represent which allows other organisations like Musasa Project to come in,” Vingi said.
“We are working with Bekezela Home-Based Care and the project is bringing in a lot of positives.”
Padare national director Walter Vengesayi said they were happy to spread their tentacles across all key societal challenges.
“We are highly encouraged by the strides we are making with the ‘We Care’ project to incorporate service delivery and the role that make have to play and we are happy to be spreading our reach beyond fighting gender based violence and pushing for women political participation,” Vengesayi said.
“Our programming is wholesome and we are grateful to our partners like Oxfam Zimbabwe, Oxfam International, Christian AID, UNFPA, UN Women, Women Political Participation (WPP) and IDEA to mention but few.”
Padare is also pushing for the enactment of electoral laws that compel political parties to implement the 50/50 gender representation in their structures before being allowed to contest in an election.
