This time to Swazi: #15

Elections are over & the King has picked his 15th wife.

This was announced following the so-famous Umhlanga Ceremony (Reed dance), where she took part for the last time as a maiden. The dance itself takes place on the last day of a 5-day ceremony including over 100,000 young girls and women (virgins and un-married) to walk for miles cutting and bringing reeds to present to the Queen Mother. The dance is well-attended as all the girls dance in attire (nude) in front of thousands including the King and the royal family.
I can't stop asking myself why another wife? Why. This young girl of 18 years was chosen to now live a life she may have never aspired to live. The father of the girl spoke about how she was set to attend University next year, yet now that is no longer the case. Having been working in an NGO surrounded by issues of gender and empowering women; this case does not support anything that we set out to achieve; such as providing the necessary skills for young women to dream and pursuit their opportunities. Highly controversial in regards to the support Swaziland may receive internationally; if the leaders of the country don't support the notion of empowering women, how can we progress. There are tremendous challenges with women and young girls in the country in regards to having men (older men) act as "providers" or "sugar-daddy's" in return of often sexual favours. Men give the impression that if they can support a child to pay for school fees, or provide air time or a source of income, then the women don't need to stand on their own two feet and pursuit the vast opportunities they may have.

At the Reed dance

In Swazi attire

Winter is over.

Now that we are well into September, I've packed my winter coats, boots and scarves far far away. Yesterday it was a roasting 38 degrees Celsius, hardly able to get from A to B without sweating buckets. With the day off from work, I roasted in the sun at a nearby hotel just to relax and unwind from all that is going on. Everyone needs a little down-time eh..that was my excuse anyway ;) On the other hand, I've seen rain today for the first time in months, and it's actually quite refreshing! We are now moving into the hot and rainy summer months, so I'm looking forward to start getting my tan back ;)

In the Bush at Mbuluzi

View of Maguga Dam

On route to Milwane

At Malendala's Farm

Girls Empowerment Clubs

The girls clubs I've been helping with at SWAGAA (Swaziland Action Group Against Abuse) are well established going into the school's third term before they break for the year in December. We now have over 25 clubs established, each with a minimum of 40-70 girls, across all four regions of the country. As we are well into our monitoring phase, the clubs are proving to be highly successful and with lots of room for improvement. Such as bringing a counsellor in to the schools for direct easy support; involving boys in the discussions or creating their own clubs and continuing to work on the sustainability aspects moving forward and creating stronger relationships with the various stakeholders we have interested...ie. Ministry of Education. We have had our coordinator move on to a new position, though have quickly filled the role and are looking forward to strengthening the clubs and growing them next year. Part of my role was to establish libraries in 5 of the new schools so that has been achieved through generous donations, and we also have an organization coming from Botswana (King's Foundation) to teach our mentors activity based-games that they can use with their girls. (I'm very excited about this - using sport and activities to empower young women can only be a good thing!) I was also involved with facilitating our SWAGAA team building retreat which was a great success, and certainly a skill I look forward to using more often.