AFRICANEWS

A giant forum for women

by Newton Sibanda (494 words)

In Zambia today, girls still face a whole array of barriers to education which undermine the fulfilment of their potentials. Some of the barriers are teachers' unfriendly attitudes towards girls, heavy workload of household chores, lack of decent toilet facilities for girls at school, sexual harassment, early marriage and teenage pregnancy.

To address all these issues, The Forum for African Women Educationalists of Zambia (FAWEZA) was established in Zambia on the International Women's Day, 8th March,1996. FAWEZA is a non-governmental organisation (NGO) whose mission is to ensure that gender equity is in-built in all educational policies in Zambia by ensuring that education policies are implemented in a way that promises gender equity and stumulates debate on all social policies because they impinge on how education in implemented.

Working hand in hand with the government, FAWEZA endeavours to eradicate all barriers to girls' education in fulfilling of the Education For All (EFA) goals. FAWEZA's goals are mutual assistance and collaboration among female teachers, education officers, inspectors of schools, college principals, lecturers and research scientists in developing national capabilities to accelerate the participation of girls and women at all levels of education in Zambia with the assistance of the Royal Netherlands and Royal Norwegian Embassies, UN fund for population activities (UNFPA) and Canada fund FAWEZA has travelled the width and breadth of the country sensitising female and male educationalists about the benefits of educating the girl-child.

FAWEZA's overall goals are summarised as follows;

• to invigorate political commitment to EFA goals by emphasising that fully two-thirds of missing eligible children are female.
• to stimulate governments, donors, and NGOs to increase their investiments in education, especially girl-child education,
• to assist in the development of national skills for the purpose of strategic resource planning for the education sector,
• to use existing data to design high impact programmes that account for the special needs of female students and teachers,
• to help othe NGOs expand their support for female education, gender differences in access, achievement and monitoring the impact of policy on female education,
• identifying relevant policy questions and priorities to which research should be directed, ensuring that the implementation of education policy addresses the gender differences in access, attainment and achievement, and monitoring the impact of policy on female education,
• supporting ways of maximasing the utilisation of resources within the overal education systems which, over time, can help underwrite the expansion of educational provision for all students.
• supporting women in key positions to form networks of educationalists to spearhead advocacy for girls' education at the national level, and through training, fellowships and representation at relevant decision-making fora and strengthening women's professional and influencing capapacities.
• disseminating research finding and information on workable strategies on improving girls' performance in education in general, and on accelerating female participation in particular.

FAWEZA, like its forunner FAWE (Forum for African Women Educationalists), is the brainchil of the union of the Association for the Development of Education in Africa (ADEA) and African Ministers of Education.

For further information Contact:
FAWEZA LONGONOT ROAD
P.O. BOX 37695
LUSAKA ZAMBIA.