Betty Makoni - Photo courtesy of CNNBetty Makoni has been nominated as a CNN Hero for her work protecting the powerless. Betty was interviewed on Larry King Live on June 4, 2009.
To read CNN’s story on Betty and watch CNN’s two videos featuring Betty and the work of Girl Child Network go to CNN Heroes.
We are delighted that Betty is receiving such well-deserved recognition for her work and hopeful for the positive impact that such attention and focus can bring to Betty and Girl Child Network.
Labels: Betty Makoni, CNN, GCN
To celebrate 10 years of their work Betty sent all of Girl Child Network's funders and supporters a heart felt thank you. IDEX is honored to know Betty Makoni and everyone at GCN and glad to have played a roll in your inspiring success. Thank you Betty and GCN for your hard work.
And to IDEX supporters we thank you for supporting GCN and our partners around the world.
Email from Betty Makoni - Empowered rural girl from Zimbabwe heads to Oxford University: GCN celebrates 10 years on 21 March 2009
From torn paper to laptop to email to technology to communication
From silent victims of harmful cultural practices to international advocates for girls rights
From speechless girls, to mouthful girls
From the smoky huts to five star hotels
From the dark potholed dusty roads of remote rural areas to lightful streets of Oxford, New York, Harare
From invisible past to visible present and future
From tearful songs to songs of empowerment
From verseless poetry to voiceful poetry
Girls are walking in the fullness of their potential
(By Betty Makoni, Unpublished poet and Founder of Girl Child Network)
Dear friends,
On Saturday 21 March 2009, Girl Child Network (www.gcn.org.zw) turns ten years. There is a girl who emailed me as below and I felt she summed it up well so well. Please note I removed her name from the original email but the rest of the email is in its original form and content.
“Hello Betty
I was at Tsindi Secondary School in Rusape, Manicaland in 2006. I just want to say a big thank you to you and the Girl Child Network Trust Zimbabwe. You helped me a lot not financially but with the sweet and advising words you said when you came to our School. Now I have grown knowing my rights, knowing I have to speak up and always view the sky as the limit.
Me being brought up in our small village and we did not have enough opportunities to do what other girls where doing, I used to look at myself like I am nothing and whenever we had sports and gatherings, I used to feel like I do not exist. Thanks to you I finally saw the potential, which was inside myself, right now as I write to you I am studying Nursing and Paramedic and I will be going to university in September, which is amazing. I will be going to Oxford University by the way and I give all the thanks to you because you made me realize I can do anything. I hope the GCNT is still going on no matter what happened or what happens back home.
Thank you very much and god bless!!!
I hope Mai Mvududu is still cheerful as she used to be.
Love you and take care.”
Personally I never imagined a situation where a rural girl would one day email from Oxford to say, “I finally made it.” I was used to seeing girls with dirty, torn uniforms, shoeless, rough feet and rough hands. My picture of girls in tears, overworked, married off, domesticated and raped made me worry a lot. Each time I looked at them I saw great potential erased by abject poverty. Now when I open my email box ten years down the line, I get messages that make me feel the world must relook empowerment programs for girls and replicate wherever, whenever, however they can use the Girl Child Empowerment Model by Girl Child Network.
I told girls in Canada many times that each time I fly to their country it is the voice of a male pilot that I hear and then I see many air hostesses serving food. Not that it is a bad thing to be an air hostess but we need the number of those pilots and air hostesses balanced in terms of gender.
We must not tire in our efforts in supporting girls so that we close on the gender inequality gap created by patriarchy in the world and according to me it does not matter whether one is in the north or south. It looks gender inequality and women empowerment needs to be addressed at a much earlier stage. Girls will be women but women will never be girls again and so we start now!!!!!!!!!!!!!
From 1999 we have supported thousands of girls in Zimbabwe to transform from perceived victims to leaders and many now walk in the fullness of their potential. Girl Child Network turns 10 on 21 March 2009. We have every reason to celebrate our achievements and please join us!
Tomorrow in Chitungwiza a high-density suburb of over one million people, girls will celebrate their 10th anniversary and Stembile Mabhena, former National Girls Executive Secretary General and current representative of girls on the board will give a key-note address and spell out the next vision for Girl Child Network from 2009 to 2019. Girls will march from our offices in Zengeza 4 to Makoni Shopping centre.
Throughout the year many events will take part formally and informally where Girl Child Network will share the Girl Child Network Model within and outside Zimbabwe.
The whole world has supported GCN morally and financially.
But mostly our story was made possible by all of you.
Thank you all on behalf of girls in Zimbabwe and tomorrow is a big day for us all.
Betty Makoni
IDEX is proud and delighted to be part of your work and wishes everyone at GCN a very Happy Birthday.
Labels: Betty Makoni, empowerment, GCN, Zimababwe
Betty Makoni, Founder of GCN, sent women in the USA a congratulatory message on the inauguration of Barack Obama, and the smooth transition of government.Dear sisters in USA
Warm greetings,
Yesterday we were all glued to Botswana television and watched USA make history on Inauguration of their first young, energetic intelligent and black president. It has been customary for me now to follow every story of the Obama girls when they take to the world stage with their Dad and that marks also a new beginning for all girls in the world that yes we can do it, and what our fathers can do, we can also!
Sisters we want to congratulate you for the new era of hope and change and it is always great to cast a vote for someone you want to see president and that vote is not rigged
Just listening to Obama speak and though he did not mention names, I thought here in Africa his message was very clear on what leadership should all be about. Leaders in our part of the world here must unclench their fists and stop blaming the West for their own man made disasters. Also the message on food on the farms and clean running water was not directed to anyone but we all embraced it in Zimbabwe because where I stayed myself I had no running water for a year and now Zimbabwe has been struck very hard with a cholera epidemic. Lets hope our leaders in Africa embraced this message!
Just last year I had a rare opportunity to be invited by the current Vice President, Joe Biden's office to testify to the senate on International Violence against Women Act (IVAWA) whose campaign had reached an advanced stage but I could not come because last minute this was postponed due to the election campaigns going on. Now that elections are over, maybe sisters in the US can help us track this vision by your current Vice President because he was the biggest sponsor of this Bill which when passed into law will support groups like Girl Child Network working so hard to stop violence against women and girls in Africa. Also it would make it possible for US to intervene within six months in cases like Jestina Mukoko's when women human rights defenders are incarcerated. We are fully aware of the many challenges our sisters in the US have to deal with during this transition and we will be with you in spirit and learn from your coping mechanisms
Once again congratulations our sisters because every time I received emails from many of you or when we met, you just sounded anxious and hoped for something new and so yesterday rest assured you will all be okay
It is so interesting how our countries are in the same universe but so different. I counted that since 1980 when I turned 11 until now 2009, which is 29 years, you sisters in the US have had more than 10 presidents. Now I am 37 years old and turning 38 this year and my son who turned 13 recently and myself have had ONLY ONE PRESIDENT in our lifetime. It is quite possible that my grandchildren will see the same president in the next ten years and so three generations of us will have one president. However I have been lucky because I have been in neighboring beautiful and democratic Botswana and saw presidents do transitions smoothly and its people protected by the government. This also ushers hope for Africa because leading democratic countries like Botswana are good examples of what Africa can do if committed
Congratulations to you sisters and Michelle Obama too! Your new administration has women and girls and children at heart and so for the next few years we will work closely together to overcome the challenges women and girls face in both our countries.
Well again and again congratulations sisters!
Regards
Muzvare Betty Makoni
Freelance Defender for Rape Survivors
Southern Africa
Labels: Betty Makoni, GCN, Zimbabwe
Zimababwe has been in the world's spotlight since the elections earlier this year. Betty Makoni, a founding member of Girl Child Network, has kept IDEX informed of what has been happening as she sees it. Some of the stories have been truly distressing.Speaking out the 17th International AIDS Conference in Mexico City this week Betty Makoni said:
“Rape is being used as a weapon of political intimidation to instill fear in us, our families and communities.”
Betty has been working to document cases of abuse as a result of the elections. AIDS-Free World, an advocacy organization investigating rape as a political weapon is reviewing many of the cases with the goal of prosecuting the cases.
Read the full story here.
Labels: Betty Makoni, GCN, Zimbabwe
IDEX is excited to announce that Betty Makoni, founder of Girl Child Network (GCN) in Zimbabwe has been awarded the 2008 Ginetta-Sagan Award for Women's and Children's Rights.“We are transforming victims into survivors, survivors into leaders. We help girls stand on their own feet and fight back against violence and exploitation.” Betty Makoni.
Since we first started supporting Betty and GCN, IDEX has been inspired by her work. It was a great honor for IDEX to nominate Betty for this award and even greater pleasure to know that her work and that of GCN is being so widely recognized.
This prestigious award, overseen by Amnesty International, comes at a time of even greater uncertainty in Zimbabwe. The results of the Zimbabwe Presidential election still undeclared nearly 2 week after the election and growing tension in the country.
Amnesty International has organized An Evening With Betty Makoni on April 23, 2008 at the Hotel Kabuki in San Francisco. If you wish to attend, please RSVP by April 18 with Katia Roux on (415) 252-1750, ext. 203.
Labels: Betty Makoni, GCN
Author and filmmaker Michealene Risley recently traveled to Zimbabwe to visit IDEX partner, Girl Child Network (GCN) and founding member Betty Makoni.Betty and Michealene had met during a visit to the US where Betty had inspired and impressed Michealene. Michealene's trip to Zimbabwe was to document the abuse of girls in Africa for her upcoming film Tapestries of Hope. The trip unfortunately did not go as planned as Michealene and Betty were both arrested. After being held for three days, Michealene was subsequently deported.
You can read Michealene's account of her trip at the
Huffington Post and also visit the Tapestries of Hope blog to read more about her trip and the incredible work of GCN and Betty Makoni.
Betty was also released without being charged, but was arrested again on August 30 after appearing on a Zimbabwe television show. Betty was released the next day, but her activities remain under a close watch from the Zimbabwe government.
Betty Makoni and Girl Child Network continue to offer sanctuary and hope for many girls in Zimbabwe. We at IDEX support them as they continue their heroic work.
Labels: Betty Makoni, GCN, Michealene Risley, Tapestries of Hope
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