ZINASU has made a creditable stride towards its gender-justice project by creating a full-fledged gender desk within its secretariat. The gender desk will carry out programs that have a bias towards female students so as to play down and eventually eliminate discrimination against female students and radically uproot the culture of marginalization of female students.

The creation of a new pattern of female students oriented activism buttressed by robust networks with the broader Zimbabwean society and leading to the creation of a gender responsive students movement.

Goals and objectives
• To create a platform for female students to discuss issues affecting them.
• To raise awareness on gender-justice and create gender balance within the leadership of the students government.
• To radically uproot all forms of discrimination against female students.
• To make genuine and equitable regional and international links with other students’ governments who share the value of gender-justice.
• To empower, prosper and unlock values within individual female students.
• To provoke female students to be pro-active in championing the students concerns.
• To aggravate female students to actively participate in the discourse of topical issues of national relevance.

 

To this end ZINASU Gender desk has carried out three consultative meetings in three of ZINASU’s six regions as part of its ongoing rigorous consultative exercise. The consultative exercise is aiming to investigate the concerns of female students from various regions and orchestrate them into a defined set. The outcome of which will then inform the activities to be undertaken by the gender desk.
 The consultative meetings were attended by an average of thirty female students per region. The meetings proved to be quite useful as female students engaged each other in vigorous debate and deliberations. Submissions were made on issues primarily affecting female students, challenges faced by female students as leaders and activists. The participants then submitted ways in which female students’ participation in ZINASU can be enhanced. Although the three regions made somewhat dissimilar contributions, the differences were only contextual and of face value. The fundamental details were common to all three regions.
A synchronized report on these consultative meetings will be available on the website upon completion of the consultative exercise.