Grace Mugabe to officiate at Gwanda Family Day commemorations

THE First Lady, Dr Grace Mugabe, will on Thursday officiate at the International Rural Women and Family Day commemorations at Pelandaba Stadium in Gwanda.

The commemorations will be held under theme, "Economic Empowerment for the Rural Women through Mining Activities for a Healthy Family."

The Matabeleland South Provincial Development Officer in the Ministry of Women Affairs, Gender and Community Development, Ms Merjury Sikhundla, yesterday confirmed that Dr Mugabe would grace the occasion.

"On the day the First Lady is going to commission a women's Stamp Mill in Collen Bawn which was erected by the government through its funding partner UNDP," said Ms Sikhundla.

"The project was started by the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe some time ago but was not finished. Our Ministry took it upon itself to finish the project after checking around the country and finding that a lot of these projects have been vandalised."

She said her Ministry has the mandate to empower women so that they have healthy families through mining activities.

"Mining is a window of the Zim-Asset economic blueprint. We assessed the road we have covered in empowering women who were disadvantaged by the colonial regime. Women now own assets which were predominantly owned by men," Ms Sikhundla said.

She said women in the province have been trained by the School of Mines in mining basics so that they carry out proper mining.

"We did so because we don't want them to do short cuts as they will be scuttling government efforts to revive the economy through mining. We trust the women and they have been selling their gold to Fidelity," Ms Sikhundla said.

In 2007, women miners received support from the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe in the form of infrastructure and fencing at designated sites.

The site in Gwanda was developed into a service centre where women would be provided with mining services.