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AFRICA-WOMEN Jul-26-2007 (520 words) xxxi
Catholic head of WYWCA looks forward to empowering African women
By Bronwen Dachs
Catholic News Service
CAPE TOWN, South Africa (CNS) -- Building leadership among Christian women in Africa is one of the tasks Zimbabwean Catholic Nyaradzai Gumbonzvanda said she looks forward to in her new position as general secretary of the World Young Women's Christian Association.
"As a Catholic, the values of my faith will influence my contribution as we work together to address the challenges of developing countries, such as poverty reduction, HIV/AIDS and conflict resolution," said Gumbonzvanda, 40, in a July 17 telephone interview from Nairobi, Kenya, where she is the regional program director for the U.N. Development Fund for Women in East Africa and the Horn of Africa.
Gumbonzvanda has lost two brothers and a sister to AIDS-related illnesses in Zimbabwe, where one in five adults is HIV-positive.
"HIV/AIDS and leadership development are my special interests," Gumbonzvanda said, noting that she wants to "bring the voice of women to decision-making tables at an international level, particularly as we work toward the millennium goals."
The Millennium Development Goals were adopted by almost 200 U.N. member nations in 2000 and seek to slash global poverty in half by 2015 by increasing richer countries' spending on development aid for poorer nations.
Gumbonzvanda said her four-year appointment at the women's association, announced in Nairobi July 11, gives her "an opportunity to be of service to humanity through a focus on women and girls."
"I want to give of my best to them and offer practical solutions," she said, noting that the Geneva-based association with members in 125 countries "has great potential to raise the voice of women of faith."
"Women bear a heavier responsibility for caring for those infected" with AIDS "and are also at higher risk of contracting the virus, particularly in southern Africa," Gumbonzvanda said. Sub-Saharan Africa has the world's highest rate of HIV/AIDS.
After her mother died in 2006, Gumbonzvanda set up a support network in Zimbabwe for women in caretaking roles -- while she cared for her children and grandchildren.
"There are so many older women helping each other, taking other women's children on as their own when they die," she said, noting that Zimbabwe's failing health care system contributed to the deaths in her family.
"I think it is important to build leadership among Zimbabwean Christian women so that they can make a meaningful contribution in resolving" the country's political and economic crisis, said Gumbonzvanda, who returns to Zimbabwe once every two months and regularly plows the earth at her rural home in Murewa.
"I have been very influenced by the resilience I found within my family," she said.
"We have found ourselves able to provide for each other, support each other in times of need and pray for each other," she said.
Gumbonzvanda is the first international coordinator of the women's committee of the World Conference of Religions for Peace and chairs the advisory committee of the African Women of Faith Network.
She has a law degree from the University of South Africa and did postgraduate studies in conflict resolution at Uppsala University in Sweden.
END
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