Maravi

Kazunga shares her experiences in the NGO world

Kazunga shares her experiences in the NGO world
By Cliff Phiri
Sunday February 24, 2008 [03:00]

IF there are people who are influential in campaigning to bring about political or social change, it must be those in NGOs. Mary Kazunga, who was been at the helm of the Young Women Christian Association (YWCA) for close to two decades, has been instrumental in the formation and functioning of many NGOs in Zambia today. This has earned her a number of accolades, both locally and internationally. Last year, Kazunga became the first Zambian to be appointed member of the World YWCA executive, an honour she received as one of the most outstanding women in the world.

To add to her merits, she was honoured to be on the International Who's Who Professionals, a movement recognising all professionals worldwide. Kazunga, the first interim chairperson of NGOCC, now shares her experiences in the NGO world.

Question: As I welcome you to this interview, I want to know who Mary Kazunga is.

A. Mary Kazunga is a mother, a housewife involved in several activities, especially in the area of gender activism and voluntary work.

Q. When did you develop interest in gender activism and the women's movement?
A. It was in the early sixties. That time I was working for the council in Ndola when the British Council sent me to do a course in women and girls. At the council, I was responsible for women and girls in the social welfare department. I worked with Dr Siteke Mwale and Mr Romance Sampa in the department. I then moved to YWCA (Young Women Christian Association) in 1966. I joined YWCA in the early years of its formation, which was in 1957. In all my working life I spent a few years with the local government in Ndola, but I have entirely worked with the YWCA.

In fact, I took over as general secretary from Inonge Wina, who was the first general secretary for Lusaka. In 1975 the International Women's Year was launched in Mexico and Zambia was represented by Mama Kankasa. Upon her return, the government then decided to launch the International Women's Year, which later became the International Women's Decade. I was one of those who launched it in Zambia.

We went to Livingstone with Mrs. Edna Kamanga (wife of then vice-president Reuben Kamanga) for this launch. This launch made women realise that it was an important year for their own development. It actually sensitised, cautioned the women on the need for their participation in the development of the country. So from that I developed interest in the women's movement. In YWCA I worked as general secretary for Lusaka for 11 years, from 1966 to 1977.

In 1977 I became the national executive director of the YWCA of Zambia up until my retirement in 1996. I was the third executive director of YWCA after the late Monica Makulu and Musonda Kalyafye Banda. So up to now I am still the longest-serving executive director.
Q. What would you say were your achievements at YWCA?

A. I have been a consistent leader in the field of women and human rights. The other is the introduction of institutional capabilities at YWCA. I introduced this in Zambia as well as the YWCA in southern Africa.

I created self-reliance. At that time, 40 per cent of our core budget was funded from our own resources. So when donor funding dried out, we still had an alternative source of funds. It was, however, difficult to convince our donors because they were saying that we were commercialising and moving away from our mission. But we convinced them and we acquired a number of property.
Q. I hear you have been instrumental in the formation of a number of NGOs including NGOCC, Women's Lobby Group, WILDAF (Women in Law and Development in Africa)...

A. With the formation of NGOCC and others, I would like to say that I was indeed instrumental. When we went for the mid-decade meeting in Denmark, I realised that there was need of getting together.

But even before that, the YWCA gave a forum to other organisations and I was working for the YWCA but this time I was working for the Lusaka YWCA as its general secretary. During this period, we used to have a lot of visitors and the government and its party used to use us then when there was anything in the line of gender, as well as embassies, especially the American Embassy. When they had a visitor coming, especially in the areas of women, we would host those meeting and we would call the other NGOs.

So through that we realised the need to have a coordinating committee, because what we were doing was like coordinating other NGOs to discuss issues especially in the area of gender. That time we were very few of us as staff. We then got an overseas volunteer who started to assist me and then we started the meetings and prepared for the end of the decade in Nairobi. From Nairobi, an organisation in the name of NGOCC was born. In fact, I was the first chairperson of NGOCC; I was the interim chairperson. I have now been honoured by NGOCC - they have named their conference centre after me and they have asked me to be a trustee.

As for the lobby group, I think it was born out of the experience we had in the US. In 1991 the American Department of States invited me together with 20 other women from around the world to tour activities in the US. Upon my return, the American Information Centre called me to report back to other women's organisations on my experiences in the US. One of the things I told them was that I was impressed with the lobbying of women's affairs in the US, how it was being done and the positive results of the lobbying. Just there, they said let's start it, and so the lobby group was started from YWCA.
Q. What was your involvement with WILDAF?

A. As a member of WILDAF I had a chance to facilitate at a number of workshops.

I played a role in planning for the UN workshop on femicide (the systematic killing of women because they are women), in Senegal, in preparation for the Beijing Summit. My contribution was to introduce the femicide study to WILDAF. We shared, as organisations, to have femicide studies in the southern region. I chaired the workshop on femicide in Beijing. WILDAF mostly used me as a resource person. I have also been privileged to address heads of state at the UN. In 1993 the Women's Caucus chose me to go and present their views to the UN where heads of state were in attendance. This was in Vienna, Austria.

Q. Which notables did you work with during the formation of some of these NGOs?

A. There are a lot of people and organisations but the names do seem to go, some of them outstanding but retired like me.
Q. Are you fully retired?

A. Well, I'm still active. Now I am the chairperson for the Habitat for Humanity Zambia. I also chair the Africa and Middle-East Habitat. I also sit on the International Board for Habitat for Humanity International.

At this level, I have been able to interact with world statesmen like Jimmy Carter (former US president). President Carter has been involved in the work of Habitat. He believes if people are not housed, it takes away the humanity in them. So he helps, together with his wife, to build houses. He also helps in raising funds. KK (Dr Kaunda) has also helped to raise funds with Carter.

After the 2003 build, we decided we needed someone influential, like Carter is at world level, to help us. So KK was identified and he is now our patron. I have dealt with Carter and being a board member, I have had an opportunity to meet him - the last being last year when he came to meet us as Habitat International board members in Americus, Georgia. The Habitat Headquarters is in Americus, Georgia and apparently Carter comes from Georgia.

Q. I notice that there are just two Africans on the International Board for Habitat?
A. Yes... we were three but the other one from Malawi left after finishing his term and the other is from South Africa. So we are just two Africans now.

Q. Are you still involved with the Anglican Children's Project?

A. Not anymore. I was involved for quite a few years. When our term of office came to an end - all of us on the committee - there was a change of how the organisation had to be run.

Now the Bishop had the responsibility of nominating. He did that but unfortunately it didn't last. I was chairperson for some years and I feel that was a successful project, but church projects sometimes tend to be difficult because of certain reasons. We have some children, one girl is at NIPA. We could see she had determination.

Q. Let me take you back to NGOCC. I am sure when you were setting up that organisation, you had set objectives. After more than two decades, do you think the objectives have been attained? What have been the challenges?

A. We have done well with some but not as well with others. We were hoping that an organisation like that will be coordinating others, which they have done very well. There are so many organisations that have joined.

We thought we would be sharing resources. That, I think, became a challenge later on. Before that, the resources that I think started the organisation were YWCA’s and others who were involved such as Theresa Chewe.

And then we were hoping that there would be a lot of training, and training is still there. But because they have grown so big, training seems to be concentrated to just a few. We were hoping smaller organisations would be having training in computers and other technology that had come. So yes, some of it has been done. But mind you, when we started in 1980, there was so much emphasis on women. I remember in the early days when we wanted to do things, for example, under UNIP's women's league, YWCA and one or two other organisations were identified to join them.

But then there was a problem of getting funding - but with our joining them, we were able to get money. After I worked for the YWCA for so many years, I just wonder if I could now, because there are so many other women's organisations.

Mind you, we were a leader and even this coordinating body was a leader and also it was the age where the women's participation was so important and so it was given the due respect and support throughout the world and Zambia as well. There are things that we did well in those days but now there could be a bit of a problem.

I know we have got money, the smaller NGOs look up but the administration itself has become big and you have to support yourself. When you are a coordinating body, it’s not as easy. I think those are some of the challenges that the new NGOCC is facing. Challenges are in the area of resources which have to be shared.

Q. You said your concentration then was on women. Now, do you think you have achieved much in terms of promoting and protecting both the human rights and legal rights for women since the formation of NGOCC in 1980?

A. I think there has been a lot of sensitisation work done such as services offered among women and definitely the YWCA has been a leader in that we started talking about women's issues.

Then they were not termed as women's issues. For example, in our early days, we talked about succession and inheritance which became the law of succession and inheritance. I remember as early as the 60s, the YWCA saw what was happening to widows. We moved on as YWCA and we were the first ones to set up drop-in centres, and the first ones to set up a centre for battered women. In fact, it was the first one in east, central and southern Africa, other than in South Africa where they had one for the whites. These were born from the many meetings, which we attended as YWCA, which I also attended in my personal capacity as executive director. We shared a lot of ideas and we did a lot of work.

This is how we brought the agenda of women's participation and women's rights to the government. For example, there was a commission which was set up and I went in the name of YWCA to give evidence. But also the YWCA did a lot of studies because people were so naïve, and are so naive even now. There was a denial that women were abused. So we had to prove that women are abused by having a study.

The first study did say this. We got someone - Elizabeth Phiri - to help us with that study and it did affirm what we were talking about. We had tribunals where the abused women came to say their stories and we had the judges at that tribunal. The judges were amazed; some of them said 'we have sat on the bench but we have never ever heard those stories'. This is because women are never made to be free to be able to talk about them. Some judges and some people shed tears because of the moving stories. One of the stories that I think sticks in most people's minds is about this woman who killed her husband. But people don't know the reasons why sometimes this happens.

This woman, for example, who gave evidence at this first tribunal showed her hands and asked, "What have I got?" We said "Yah yah, you have got your fingers." She said "What? The nails? What colour are they?" "They are red." She said to them, "I have no nails. My husband dipped them into some acid and all nails came out. I just put red polish so that I appear to have nails," she said. “He cut my private parts and in fighting back I accidentally killed him." There was also a woman whom we went to visit in prison and was on death row. She had killed her husband. You know why she killed him?
Author: No, I don't. Tell me...

A. He used to beat her. One time, on a second floor of a flat in Ndola, he threw her and she got injured. She had a crack in her skull and even ended up in Chainama (hospital).

He used to tie her behind the car and drag her. He would put her in a small house and threatened to set it on fire. He did all that and she reacted and killed him. She was given, by this law firm, a civil lawyer instead of a criminal lawyer who did not go into all the details. This woman lost an eye, her hair and her brain was damaged. They never went into all those.

The YWCA study on femicide revealed that women are usually killed for very small things - the husband doesn't find food ready, she's killed. We shared with some study from Canada where some girls were doing engineering and a young man came and thought that girls are not supposed to do engineering and so they were killed.
Q. What are the statistics on femicide, like in Zambia?

A. It was a very small study but it indicated that women were killed a lot. But their killers did not get the sentence which they should have got. The study showed that 60 per cent of the women were killed by their partners or their husbands, showing that even in your own home you are not safe.

Q. Is it that there is a rise in the cases of abuse or they are now reported more frequently?

A. The police were very uncooperative before. They thought a woman would come, with twenty other people around, and talk about being raped. No woman would. But nowadays they are given a chance where you can talk in privacy. So the Victim Support Unit is helpful and it was born, I would like to boast; from YWCA. We assisted the police; we helped retrain them and indeed helped them to set up the Victim Support Unit.

But then there is still a lot of hiding. Incest, for example, is still very secretive. There has been some sensitisation where people can talk about it and people now are reporting. The police now are more accessible to hear these stories. The other problem has been that we women even after being abused, we cannot go because we are still dependent on men economically. When you are thrown out, normally he will throw you out with your children. That's why at the YWCA shelter for battered women, we accepted women with their children.

The whole idea of the YWCA shelter was not to say 'come out of your marriage,' but rather to rethink. Some of these cases of incest and defilement have been a result of these myths that people have. Some people think they will be cured of a disease if they sleep with a young virgin. Others think their cattle will multiply when they sleep with their daughters, especially if she gets pregnant. So women organisations should continue to fight these tendencies.

Even the men, we do have men allies in this fight. If you did a study, you will have something that people will believe. But if you just told them of what is happening, they don't. So these should continue to build on past studies. The YWCA did a lot, and they should build on those. We should be sharing these studies so that it becomes not only a Zambian issue but a wider, global issue if we are to tackle it.
Q. Don't you think we have adequate laws in place that deal with violence in any form as well as murder?

A. There are but I think many of the laws vary. The have the minimum and maximum sentence and there is a tendency of giving the offenders the minimum. I think His Excellency President Mwanawasa did say they should change these sentences. I suppose he can't make a law, but he is supporting it and we need people like him to be pushing for this. We need sensitisation among the MPs. Some MPs may be good but they don't have the information, so women NGOs should take the role of education.

Q. Talking about education, we have had a number of declarations signed aimed at creating equal opportunities in education for men and women, boys and girls. How have we fared in this sector?

A. I would have to look up the CSO (Central Statistics Office) report but I would like to believe we are still behind. We are still behind in many ways because how many parents believe that daughters must have the same chance as their sons when there is poverty? These poverty levels of 80 per cent are unacceptable because they are a deterrent to the marginalised. So we haven't gone very far but we are on the way, though I don't think we are 50-50.
Q. How have we performed in terms of women's economic empowerment?

A. Poor women... very little. I don't know if the land policy has moved - where you have to own land and can borrow.
Q. But in the recent past we have seen financial institutions offering incentives specially meant to empower women...

A. That's true. But then don't you get a loan according to how you can pay back? Unless you are talking about empowerment on little things. I remember when I was working at YWCA in the NGO world, the donors would say ‘small is beautiful’ and I said ‘small is not beautiful, it doesn't take you far.’ For example, if they get a loan to sell tomatoes how much do they make? That money goes back to the family. Women's money is meant to help homes but most of the men's money goes to pleasure. Women's empowerment has started but it's facing a lot of problems; collateral is one, education is another.

Education wise, if you have to borrow a huge loan, then the management skills have to go with it. So there are a lot of packages to any successful economic empowerment for you to enter into the mainstream. If there are women who have gone into the mainstream, they are very, very few. Here I am; I worked for YWCA for thirty years, three years for the council. I can't boast, I have ended up like anybody else because the systems are not helpful.

Q. I notice that some other countries like Angola have strengthened their institutional mechanisms by coming up with the ministry of women affairs, for example, whilst in Zambia we just elevated the gender department to gender in development division. Do you think we need an institution at ministerial level?

A. I have a problem, it may just be me. There was something at very high level; it never got support – financial support and so on. You know that department was sidelined. For women to make it, they have to be in the mainstream, they have to be everywhere. In all the departments they have to be represented at a higher level where their voice could be heard. Unless there is a determination that that ministry will be supported through and through, I think we need to do a study and see if it makes sense. But if the government's intentions are good, that has to work. Even this division can work but it is the resources not given, the due resources that women need that we should realise. I think we need a study. If Angola has done that, well, I am very pleased.

Q. As a gender activist, which key areas do you think should be addressed to improve the women’s situation?
A. Well… education is important, health itself is important because as women we are child bearers so health is important. Even the issue of looking after the sick. You know HIV/AIDS is a burden on the women. As long as it is there, women will not move because when the husband is sick, it is the wife to take care. When the children are sick, again it’s the wife. When relatives are sick it’s the wife. Even me, over 60 years, I'm still motherly because of my role. So I think it’s the whole area of livelihood that needs to be looked at at various levels.

Q. Maybe now we should talk about child trafficking. What was the extent of the problem in your early days?
A. It may not have been common but it may have existed. You know I went for a meeting organised by WILDAF, and I went as a Zambian representative. Before going, I first of all went to the police and said “can I have information I am presenting a paper on Zambia?”. They said “no, I don’t think we have it.” I went to DEC; they said they didn’t have it.

So I think child trafficking and women trafficking has been there for a long time but disguised. There have been women, children who have gone out – for work, for school and ultimately they have been made to become sex objects. Now we are talking about it and so many other organisations are taking interest. Some of these things appear in the newspapers disguised. For example, there was an advert which appeared where they were looking for women to work as bartenders in Australia.

I said to myself, why and how? Poverty is one other thing that will make the trend continue. Some women were saying they have to continue in the sex trade because they have to survive. I was one of the founder members of Tasinta and we were saying “why?” And she would say “do you want me to die?” But I would say “HIV/AIDS would kill you,” and she would say “It will take time before I die, but hunger, I will die.” So we have to improve the situation in our own country and also education. The stories we have heard of the trafficking are that there is a lot of ignorance on what is happening and how it happens.
Q. Now let's talk about your personal life...

A. I was born on 10th January in 1940 in Ndola. I went to a school called Musokotwane in Southern Province. Thereafter I went to Chipembi up to Form II and then I did my own private studies.

I then did social work in Kitwe and I have done a lot of short courses in England, Switzerland and elsewhere... I have done short courses in legal studies in The Hague. In my life, I would say I have been blessed a lot in that I have ended up in very high levels. In YWCA I ended up as a member of the World YWCA executive, which just has about three - four from Africa and I was one of them.

I was the first Zambian to be on that executive. I was honoured last year at the World YWCA council meeting as one of the most outstanding women in the world and we were given certificates. I was also honoured last year to be on the International Who's Who Professionals. This is a world movement recognising all professionals and we are about 550 worldwide and I think that was a great honour.

I have been invited to outstanding world fora. I have done a lot of facilitating at world meetings and one of the things that I look back to with pride is the Vienna meeting on human rights of 1993 in Vienna. I have been able to travel a lot in my life and take leadership roles and I thank God. I am also with SOS, I am a trustee. I am a shareholder of Zambia Open University and I am a director. So I am still involved with quite a few organisations and I am still involved with YWCA.
Q. What else do you do apart from activism?

A. Well... I go to church. I love my church. I sit on the standing committee. The standing committee is like the executive of the diocese; the highest structure is the synod and then the standing committee. This is in the Anglican Church. I go to the Cathedral and I do quite a few things in my church at the Cathedral. So I am very active in that, in KidsAlive and quite a few others.
Q. And your family life?

A. Like I said I am a wife. I am married to Fred Kazunga. He likes to call himself Fred Selby Kazunga. We got married in Ndola in a small Anglican Church in 1960. Our wedding was officiated by the late Bishop Mataka though he wasn't bishop then. It was wonderful but it's a pity we don't have any pictures because our photographer's studio got burnt with our films in it. My children have grown... but in this house we never run out of children. We were blessed with four children but
unfortunately our first born Kabinga died. He was lovely, cheerful and friendly.

The second is Ngoma; he is married to a lady called Mauzwa. Ngoma is a finance manager at Save the Children - Norway. The third is Towera, she is a principal planner at the Ministry of Local Government and Housing and she is followed by Mutondela who is an executive secretary at Barloworld.
Q. Well Mrs. Kazunga, unless you have something else to share with us, I would like to thank you for your time.

A. I feel very honoured that I am recognised and that you decided to come and speak to me. My life has been a full life. I don't look back. I just say God has been good. Thank you. /BS

Labels: MARY KAZUNGA, PROFILE, YWCA

posted by MrK @ 4:40 AM