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Daniel Chigunwe Herald Correspondent

In its quest to start income-generating projects the Young Women for Economic Development (YW4ED) Mashonaland Central chapter has embraced welding with 18 women drawn across the province participating in the ongoing training workshop in Harare.

The initiative is a step toward increasing opportunities for women in the Second Republic to contribute to the socio-economic development of the nation in line with the National Development Strategy 1 (NDS1).

YW4ED Mashonaland Central provincial head of projects Mrs Rosslyn Nyakudya Chigovera said the welding project is one of the many programmes packaged to uplift the lives of women especially in the marginalised parts of the province in line with the development mantra of leaving no one and no place behind.

“As the YW4ED Mashonaland Central chapter, we have a number of programmes mainly to do with the technical capacitation of women so that they can be able to participate in the development agenda with welding, fabrication and building being our major focus as there are usually considered a reserve of men only.

“We have 18 women from all the constituencies that have been receiving welding and fabrication training at Allutech Investments and we also made efforts to register them as a company called Stalwart Women for them to have ease of access in securing financial capital in the banks,” said Chigovera.

Meanwhile, she also confirmed that Allutech Investments also advanced a donation to women in the province in the form of a soap-making machine to support women who participate in the detergents making workshops.

“We received the soap-making machine from our partner as a gesture of help towards some of the women who undertook training in chemical and detergents and we are hoping to kickstart business soon as all the materials are in place,” added Nyakudya.

Some of the participants have hailed the initiatives saying total empowerment of women will reduce spiking cases of gender-based violence, child marriages and prostitution in the province, “As women especially in Mashonaland Central, we need a lot of income-generating projects. This will also go a long way to close the gender disparity gap which has seen our province recording the highest prevalence rates in STI, HIV/AIDS, rape and domestic violence,” said Neddy Tirivanhu.

Furthermore, women expressed the need for recognition by local authorities in the allocation of land saying scarcity of space is the major hindrance in the full implementation of these training skills in their communities.

“Support is needed and we are confident that other empowerment agencies such as the Women’s Bank, Youth Empower Bank as well as the Women’s Affairs Community, Small and Medium Enterprise will grant us the financial capacitation needed. However, we also want land to establish our business in our communities hence we call for recognition from relevant authorities so that our training will be practically implemented,” added Chiedza Machache.