Hats off to our rural women

EDITOR — The International Rural Women’s Day was commemorated on Saturday.

One of the most touching quotes about women was coined by former British Prime Minister, Margaret Thatcher, who said: “If you want something ask a man; if you want something done ask a woman.” This is even more apt for our rural women. Unfortunately they are at a great disadvantage. For a woman living in the rural area it was very hard to be considered as an important person. There was no one to recognise the greatest work they do to develop the country. Education and entrepreneurship skills were given to women in towns, forgetting those in rural areas.

Women in rural areas are the ones who provide food for the country as they are involved in many farming activities.

Sometimes most of them fail to produce high quality products due to the fact that those who were educated would not visit and educate them, so they lacked knowledge. Woman in rural areas are now leading even in cattle rearing. They are now contributing much to the development of the country.

As Zimbabweans let us be part of them in everything and support them in the good work they are doing. Also the Government should come up with programmes that develop the knowledge and skills of these women in rural areas so that there will be high yields in food production.

To those who have knowledge and ideas that can help rural women let’s make an effort to support them. Special thanks to NGOs that are helping in developing rural women. Recently there was a training workshop that was organised by an organisation called Kunzwana Women Association in which they were supported by the Women’s University in Africa to educate and give entrepreneurship skills to women in rural areas. This shows that in Zimbabwe rural women are also considered as important people.

The day was put forward by international NGOs at the Fourth World Conference on Women in Beijing in 1995 and they suggested that October 15 should be the day to celebrate rural women.

They suggested this date because the 16th of October is the World Food Day so they decided that the day should be on the eve of the World Food Day so as to highlight the role played by rural women in food production and food security.

It was finally established by the general assembly on December 18, 2007 and started to be commemorated on October 15, 2008

Let us all join hands as Zimbabweans and be part of the globe in celebrating our rural women.