leeroy mupariri
Ronald Takudzwa Sambona
It is normal during the festive season to empty all your pockets and savings on something special for the family.
After all, if you are Christian, the Christmas holiday holds deep significance for you. Buying your loved ones gifts this festive season is your affectionate way of saying, “I love you.”
But parents, the greatest gift you can offer your little girls is an opportunity to learn.
Statistics reveal that the majority of girls come to school late, often two or three weeks after schools open.
As you considered all the different ways to spoil them, remember to gift her an education.
Nobel laureate and the late president Nelson Rolihlahla Mandela correctly said, “A good head and a good heart are always a formidable combination, but add to that a literate tongue, then you have something special indeed.”
Education is not only special but also necessary for empowering girls.
Once a girl is educated, she can beneficially apply the knowledge and skills learned to improve her life for the better. And this education lasts for her whole lifetime!
This is why the greatest gift you can offer them is a high-quality education.
It starts by making her education a number one priority in your family budget, just as local councils and government budgets ensure that educational needs are met by design, not by chance.
Sustainable Development Goal 5 of the United Nations, focused on achieving gender equality, emphasizes that parents can take the right measures to promote equality starting from home. Remember to save money for her education this festive season.
I completely understand that with all the fun, demands, and pressures of the festive season, it is easy to forget about our priorities. However, let us keep our commitment to girls’ education alive!
The African region ranks lowest in terms of literacy rates among the ten regions of the world. With a literacy rate of only 62.4 percent African women have by far the highest fertility rate, with a single woman bearing about 4.8 children in her lifetime.
Sadly, the harsh reality is that the lesser educated our girls are, the more likely they are to be treated as baby-making machines by male sexual predators.
Men will always treat women the way they perceive them. To achieve gender equality in line with our founding values and principles as enshrined in Section 3 of our Zimbabwean Constitution, we should stimulate social consciousness.
It is every citizen’s responsibility to educate their society on the importance of girls’ education. Women who have achieved academic success also have a responsibility to let the younger generation of girls know they can do it too!
Once our little girls are socially conscious and understand that they too must be educated just like boys, we will already be halfway toward establishing gender equality. This festive season and every other season, let us choose to be part of the solution against women’s abuse and gender-based violence rather than the problem.
All it really takes to uplift a girl child is you and me, working together in solidarity and unity of purpose, guided by our founding values and principles enshrined in Section 3 of our Zimbabwean Constitution.
Democracy functions best when all members of a nation are equally emancipated.
After all the fancy gifts have been used up and forgotten, the gift of education will long endure and ultimately last for a girl’s whole lifetime.
So parents, let us give her an education — the gift of a lifetime!
Online Reporter
