Woza

Women Of Zimbabwe Arise (WOZA) is a group of women whose aims are:

• Provide women, from all walks of life, with a united voice to speak out on issues affecting their day-to-day lives.
• Empower female leadership that will lead community involvement in pressing for solutions to the current crisis.
• Encourage women to stand up for their rights and freedoms.
• Lobby and advocate on those issues affecting women and their families.

Their members are regularly arrested and detained in foul, over-crowded cells. They are dedicated to non-violent protest are a beacon of pride, honesty and strength in a very troubled country.

Their website does a much better job of expressing their belief and aims than I can.

The WOZA solution - TOUGH LOVE
Based on the principles of strategic nonviolence, through our actions, WOZA creates space to allow Zimbabweans to articulate issues they may be too fearful to raise alone. WOZA has conducted hundreds of protests since 2003 and over 3,000 women and men have spent time in police custody, many more than once and most for 48 hours or more. These frontline human rights defenders are willing to suffer beatings and unbearable conditions in prison cells to exercise their constitutional rights and fundamental freedoms.

WOZA was formed to be a litmus test proving that the power of love can conquer the love of power. ‘Tough Love’ is our secret weapon of mass mobilisation. ‘Tough Love’ is the disciplining love of a parent; women practice it to press for and to bring dignity back to Zimbabweans. Tough Love is a ‘people power’ tool that any community can use to press for better governance and social justice, especially for Zimbabweans. Political leaders in Zimbabwe need some discipline; who better to dish it out than mothers!

The good news is, they are accepting men now!

I'll be joining MOZA on my next trip. What better way to empower women than to join a group formed and lead by women in the most oppressive of circ***tances.